Typically, I want my work to be more comedic analysis and critical examination of modern entertainment, but for my first article, I thought I'd take things in a different direction and more or less use it as a way to introduce my style of writing, get my feet wet with this new platform, and explain a little bit about a philosophy that I personally think all college students should hold.
College is really our first taste of freedom. We take everything we've learned through our lives, and allow those lessons, beliefs, and preferences to manifest themselves in a beautiful array of partying, over eating, and sleeping for 3 hours a night. Even though we're new to "the real world" colleges and universities give young people a chance to express themselves, explore new things, and network with like minded individuals.That being said, if I personally had any advice to give to anyone currently in college or about to enter a school, I'd say 2 words: Make Mistakes
A lot of people fall victim to what's called the Spotlight Effect. Essentially, we as humans fear failure even more because we feel as though when we do fail, people care about it more than they actually do. In reality though, no one still remembers the stupid thing you did in public back in 2008, you just randomly think about it sometimes when you're alone in your thoughts (another article for another day)
Fail. Screw up. Don't be perfect. (Ok, so more than 2 words) College puts you under an unimaginable amount of pressure, and people fixate on the idea that failure equates to bad or something and I'm not sure why. There are so many benefits to failing and allowing yourself to be taken by some slight embarrassment every once in a while.
1. Experience is the best teacher
I couldn't find a good picture of a teacher so I went with the default
When you were a toddler, you probably tried to walk several times before you actually stood up on your little baby legs and walked for the first time. You probably fell forward, backward, on your sides, dozens of times.
But something interesting you should take away from that is that even though you couldn't talk, form memories, chew correctly, or perform any of the basic motor functions you can perform now, you were doing something everytime your diaper hit the ground: you were learning.
Failure is more than a concept. Not only is it a good teacher, it's probably the best teacher that there actually is. You take things away from not doing as well as you could, and whether they're regretful memories or lessons is completely dependent upon how you look at the situation.
Just Remember that there's always a take away. Learning doesn't present itself in the actual failure, but it presents itself when you know not to fall into the same situation again.
2. The more you fail, the more you succeed
Steve Jobs
So what if I told you that the more you fail, the more outgoing you become? You're not mad? Good, because that's EXACTLY what I'm telling you. No one should aim to get "familiar with failure", but the more you put yourself in positions and situations that remove you from your comfort zone, the more your comfort zone can expand to different areas
Life can be a little risky, but risky can be very rewarding. Ask literally almost multi-million dollar company CEO, the first time you try something simply may not be your best (*cough* Walt Disney, Carey Mulligan, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey *cough*). Nobody has been able to carve out a simple path to succeed. Your mountain of achievement will be built atop accidents, and that ok! Because typically everybody's is!
Eliminating the fear of failure all together opens you up to so much of life that you simply can't experience if you don't roll the dice every once and a while.
3. Optomistic Nihilism
Random picture of space to fill you with some existential dread
Alright guys, we're going to get a little deep so just stick with me. This is probably my favorite of the three points, because it's the one that I find to be the easiest to accept. Going back to the spotlight effect, most people don't care if you mess up. This is true on a much larger scale as well.
Nihilism is essentially the idea that no one is certain what happens when we're gone, and because of that, life is meaningless. We're just humans, confined to an Earth that will one day cease to exist. It's with this belief most people think that because life is pointless, we should view it in a pessimistic way.
Optimistic Nihilism adds another layer to that. Essentially, it's the philosophy that because we're so uncertain about or fate, we should live everyday as fun and beautifully as possible. Allowing ourselves to get entrenched in where we feel we should be and not what we could be happens all to often.
Not only that, but once again, no one will remember you "forgetting that line" or "falling during that move". Existence is very temporary and we should allow ourselves the greatest amount of happiness in this short amount of time.
The risk that you've been thinking about taking? Take it! You'll thank yourself in the future