It’s everyone’s favorite time of the semester — after the first wave of holiday bliss has passed, and the libraries are filled to the brim with students praying to any deity that will listen. Midterm Season. All I hear around campus at this time is “I’m going to fail.” Even I am drawn into the madness that the fear of failure brings. I found myself lying in my dorm room shaking from fear —the fear that I was going to amount to nothing.
There’s something I’ve learned since last semester. I’ve realized that failure is a part of life. I know, sounds like a load of bullshit. I thought so too. Last semester, I didn’t fail all my classes, but I got pretty damn close. It was circumstance, mixed with emotions, mixed with courses I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about. Torture. Pure torture. From late August to Mid December, I was wishing that break would sweep me away and save me from the academic hell I was living in. I had never felt that way in my life. Hating school was never in my realm, but here I was wishing that I had never stepped foot on campus. With that attitude, I fell on my ass. The “Dean’s List” high that I was riding on dropped me through a pine tree, and I hit every single branch on the way down.
I needed it though. I needed to fail at something I was so sure this was an easy road. I needed to feel the pressure and find out that life is not always going to give me what I want when I want it. I needed to learn patience and grace with failure.
After last semester, I lit a fire under my ass. I decided that it was no longer time to do things for everyone else. I changed everything: my major, extracurriculars and who I spent my time with. And I found myself enjoying the academia I once loved. The thing is, I had to realize all of this for myself. Before, I kept going to people and asking them for their input and advice, and while that’s great, if you know what you want to do, what everyone else says will only confuse you more. Failure is scary, but we all fail. What are you going to do after you fail? That is what defines you.