Some of you may be thinking that the piece of advice that I received was something along the lines of "always try your hardest" or "live every day as though it's your last." While I've heard advice like that a million times, the piece of advice that I received was unique.
I was a sophomore in high school headed into my first AP class. I was nervous, as I thought that the course would be challenging, and even though it was my third class of the day, I had already heard rumors that the new teacher for the class was scary. The first class with him was stressful. The teacher gave out heaps of homework that would take several hours every night to do, and he threatened to decrease everyone's grade by the slightest mistake. It took me five hours the first night to complete all the readings and homework he had assigned.
On the second day, he gave everyone who forgot to write their homework in black ink a zero. One girl started freaking out because our teacher said he was reducing her grade because she couldn't recall the exact date of something mentioned in the reading briefly. That was the moment that our teacher asked, "What's the worst that could happen? You might not get an A in the class?" He went on to comment how this wasn't the end of the world. This class was just one class of many that we would have to take in high school, and in a year or so we probably wouldn't even be able to recall what grade we received in that class. He told us not to stress out too much, and that if we were so much more concerned about earning an easy A than learning, then we should drop out of the class.
By the end of the week, about a fourth of the students had dropped out of the class. Around that time, we had learned what he expected of us, and our teacher wasn't as strict as he was at the start of the school year. From that class, I had to learn how to study on my own. Our teacher was a great teacher, but with the amount of American History that we had to learn by the AP test, we had to know facts that he didn't have time to cover. From that class, I learned how to be disciplined. I would complete all the homework during the weekend so that I would have time for other class work, clubs, and other activities during the school week.
When our first test rolled around, I was no longer just focused on the grade I wanted to get - I was focused on learning.
What my teacher had said about thinking of the worst outcome stuck with me. I knew that I was trying my absolute hardest and that with the amount of time and effort I had put into the class, I wasn't going to fail. I figured out that in the worst case scenario, I might not get an A, and that didn't seem like the worst thing in the world anymore.
After this class, I started taking that advice to heart. Maybe something didn't go my way precisely the way I wanted to. Most of the time, I would overthink the situations. A year later, I received a bad grade on an assignment in a class I was doing well. I thought back to the advice that my APUSH teacher had given and thought about how that grade would affect me. I was jumping to conclusions and believed that the homework assignment would decide my fate for college. In reality, I was stressing out over nothing. The assignment carried so little weight on my overall grade that the grade didn't matter.
If you're ever scared about the outcome, think about the worst possible case scenario. Most of the time, it's not as bad as you might think it is. Maybe you applied for a job you truly want. The worst possible outcome is that you don't get the job. In the scheme of things, it's not the end of the world. You can always apply for other jobs or keeping applying for that job that you want. Don't overthink outcomes that aren't likely to happen. Don't think that just because you failed that one Spanish quiz junior year of high school that the college you're applying to decides to reject you because of it.
Remember that many of things that happen to you aren't the end of the world. Take a deep breath and calm down.
