I wanted to play Little League Baseball and play the game I loved. At the end of the tryouts, all the coaches lined us up on the third baseline, and one by one they pointed to the kids they wanted on their teams. One coach stopped right in front of me and then pointed to the kid standing to my left.

Finally, another coach came over to me and three other kids who were left standing. “Thanks for trying out. We hope you come back next year and try out again.”

I walked home carrying my brand-new baseball glove and I couldn’t see the road through my tears. I thought about running away from home so I wouldn’t have to face my dad, but something told me that what I needed most was to finish my cry in my mom’s arms.

A few years later, I wanted to make the high school basketball team. After tryouts, the high school coach told me the last cut was going to be between me and this kid named Dave and he would make his decision after our last scrimmage game.

We played the scrimmage. I thought I did well. Three days before the season was to begin, the coach called me into his office and told me he was keeping Dave for no other reason than the kid was taller than me.

The more I think about it, there were plenty more times I didn’t get what I wanted. I was running through a field to pick up the golden egg during an Easter egg hunt that would have won me a brand-new bicycle, but a big kid pushed me out of the way and took it for himself. I was academically ranked in the top 12 percent in my high school, but I was not accepted into the National Honor Society even though I met all the criteria. I was accepted into the school of journalism at Syracuse University where I wanted to go, but I went to Rutgers instead because it cost far less money and I had to pay my own tuition.

When I didn’t get what I wanted, I thought I was adding another chapter in my book of failure. Failing hurts right down to the bone, especially when you’re young. You’re left with two roads to follow. Go down Extra Motivation Highway until you get what you want or travel the Pity Me - I Quit Boulevard and look for the world to give you its sympathy.

We weren’t taught how to cope with failure when I was a kid. In fact, our parents often made you feel worse by saying things like, “You’re just not good enough” or “You’d better figure out how you got to do better. We won’t have any losers in this family.”

Nowadays, if a kid doesn’t make his sports team, his parents might say, “That coach is an idiot. He didn’t give you a fair chance. You’re better than half the kids on that team.”

Coming from a generation of kids who didn’t handle failure all too well, I spoke with a principal some time ago about his mission to not allow any students to fail in his school. Teachers were required to start everyone with an A in their classes. He had pep rallies promoting self-esteem and banners all around the school reminding students how wonderful they were and to never feel ashamed or think they’re a failure.

The strategy backfired miserably. Students did little or no work. They had such high self-esteem, they didn’t need to prove themselves. As one school psychologist put it, “We had a lot of kids walking around the halls feeling great about themselves and yet they were doing next to nothing in the classroom.”

When I was a student a Rutgers University, on the first day of a class, the professor wrote a giant “F” on the board. “That’s your grade right now,” he told us. “Good luck trying to bring it up to an A.” Perhaps his method of motivation was a bit extreme, but I took it as a challenge. I worked my tail off to get a B, and to be honest, I appreciated that grade more than some of the easier classes where nearly every student got an A just for doing the minimum amount of work.

Failure is a crush to the ego, but it’s always scared me into an action to do better in my life. The words of Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie hold true. “We are all failures - at least the best of us are.”

When I think back to when I didn’t get picked to play in the Little League, the coaches were right. I wasn’t good enough, at least not until the following year when I was picked by the Orioles and played well enough to be selected for the All-Star game at the end of the season.

Life can be a giant “F” if we do nothing with it, but even when we try our best, we will inevitably have to pick ourselves up from the bottom of the pit and move on.

I’m reminded of a song by the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” And sometimes what you need is to fail. You can’t feel happiness until you’ve been sad. You can’t experience joy without suffering.

PS - If you have a story to share about a positive outcome from a personal failure, I’d like to include it in a future column. Please email your story with your first name only and the town where you live. Thanks!

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.