When I was in sixth grade, our science class did an egg drop project. The assignment was to build something that could protect an egg when it was dropped from ceiling height. I was really excited and spent full weekends trying to come up with the perfect design. I think I ended up cutting open a Nerf football, making a little space for the egg, and putting that inside a box stuffed with paper. I was convinced it would work. Then the contest started. My egg was dropped and broke completely. As the day went on and the other kids had their turns, I realized I was the only kid in the class whose egg broke. The other kids had come up with these brilliant designs, and I vividly remember being shocked when one girl had her egg suspended inside a box using pantyhose. How did she think of that? How did I not? I remember feeling devastated, as I’d put so much time and effort into this thing, and I was the only kid who failed. And I got a C on the project. I couldn’t understand how the other kids had come up with such great ideas when mine didn’t work at all. I carried that memory with me for years and remembered it as a story about putting your heart into something and then coming in dead last. Only years later did I look back and realize that I was the only kid whose parents didn't do the project for them. I was a 12-year-old competing with adults, had no idea it wasn't an even playing field, and there were consequences. It had a big impact on me at that impressionable age. There are a lot of life lessons in that egg drop project.