Around this time four years ago, I was working my butt off in my high school Honors Pre-Calculus class. Despite months of attempting to learn the material, I ended the year with a D, but it wasn't from lack of effort. I hired a tutor, I spent hours on homework, and I traded my sanity for a good grade in that class. But it was all for nothing.
I'm an obsessive over-achiever, so you can imagine what that grade did for my self-esteem. I wanted to pretend like it never happened and you better believe I wasn't going to tolerate any jokes about it. However, after four years, I've finally calmed the heck down enough to really think about what that class taught me, even though, trust me, it wasn't calculus.
1. Giving up when the going gets tough makes you a quitter; acknowledging your limitations and changing your path does not.
If I am anything, it's not a quitter. I will keep at something beyond the point where I probably should have quit because I like to work hard and see things through. That's a good quality to have, but it's also been my downfall. It would have been in my best interest to transfer to a different class after I failed the first couple of tests.
It wasn't beneficial to dedicate so much of my life to a class that would serve me no purpose in life, and that I was only continuing to take to prove my intelligence to myself and others. Well, I'm still smart with or without pre-calc, and I wouldn't have been a "quitter" if I had quit; I would have been doing what's best for me. I haven't made this mistake since.
2. Sometimes you can work and work at something and still fail. You are not a failure.
There are a lot of great "Rudy"-type stories about people who somehow succeeded even when all the odds were against them, just through pure hard work. I'm not an advocate for giving up on your dreams, but sometimes you can try your hardest and still not succeed. It's a lesson I needed to learn and one that's often overshadowed by the encouragement to keep trying. Again, if you have a dream, then I think it's admirable to keep at it, but pre-calculus was not my dream.
No matter how hard I tired, I couldn't get a good grade in that class. Yeah, maybe I would have been able to do well if I had dropped out of all my other classes and spent all of my time and energy on pre-calc, but would it have been worth it? Hell to the no.
3. Nothing is worth sacrificing your sanity.
I stayed in that class even when I knew it was crushing my confidence and taking up far too much of my time. I even let my grades slip in my other classes just so I could focus more on pre-calc. Let me tell you, it wasn't worth it. Even if I had somehow managed to ace the class, I still would have been unhappy that whole year. Pay attention to your mental health. You can't function when your brain is sick just like you can't function when your body is sick.
4. One bad grade will not ruin your life.
There are few things that will ruin your life, actually, like the apocalypse and a fatal illness. I felt like my world was collapsing around me when I failed that final exam. I still shudder at the memory of crying in front of my teacher after I had taken the test (way to add insult to injury, emotions). But guess what? I got into college. I graduated high school with a great GPA. I've done quite well in school since. That grade that showed up on my transcript during the year that colleges supposedly care most about didn't completely set me back. I even did much worse than usual in my other classes that year and I'm still alive to tell the tale.
5. Regret is meaningless.
There are a million things I wish I'd done that year, but dwelling on those things doesn't fuel my time machine. I actually realized recently that, even if I did somehow acquire a time machine, I would go back and give myself a hug, not an A. I needed to know I could fail and survive. Ultimately, what happened happened, and the future is much more important. When something soul-crushing happens, cry, eat a lot, fall onto your bed in despair, and then keep on going.
Getting a D in one class may not seem like that big of a deal, but for a weirdo perfectionist like me, getting a grade below a B is a stab to the gut. However, I know now that if the catastrophe of Honors Pre-Calc had never happened, then I would have never learned that I could survive it, or any shortcoming, to be honest. And, in the end, I'm a Human Development and Family Sciences major. What on earth do I need calculus for? Nothing, my friend. Nothing.
