With finals week approaching, many college campuses are covered with stressed out college kids trying to make the grades they need to pass the class, keep their scholarships, or graduate. As I find myself surrounded with friends dropping classes, skipping meals, or not sleeping in order to avoid failure, I am finding a new perspective on our academic system and the way students today value their worth. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand the need to get all A's, or keep a scholarship, I have to do that too. But I am also learning that staying awake until 4am working on a paper just to wake up again at 7am to finish it isn't always the best option for my mental well being.
Millennials have been raised on the "No Child Left Behind Act," which makes sure that public education systems do everything in their power to send students on to the next grade level; this means that there is an entire generation in the world, that is rapidly turning into adults, who has never failed academically. Teachers and administrators needed to make sure that everyone moved on, so hey, you bombed that science test? You can stay after for corrections! Wait, you have soccer practice and can't do that? There's a curve on the test now, no worries.
What does this teach children? That someone will always be there to fix their problems? That their actions have no significant consequences? While No Child Left Behind has good intentions and can be beneficial to some children, it set up an environment that is impacting millennials now as college students and young adults entering the workforce. Our generation has never failed and it is putting stress on us to be perfect.
Not only is there a severe level of stress or anxiety created by the pressure to be perfect, but in theory fear is really a man-made concept, does failure have a face? a tangible body to defeat? No. It is a theory all of us have built up in our head, which we allow to paralyze us from ever really going after what we want. So many people self-sabotage themselves as a way to lessen their failures. They will say they knew their friend was better fitted for the job so they didn't want to try their hardest, or won't apply to the job of their dreams because they already know they aren't good enough.
Most of us do not know how to fail. What happens? It is the end of the world. My parents will be disappointed, my boss will fire me, I'll fail the class, I won't graduate, there will be some weird mark on my forehead so EVERYONE KNOWS I FAILED.
How do I come back from failure? I never learned as a child, if I ever did fail at something I don't remember, it was brushed over and cleaned up by someone other than myself. Now I'm in an anxiety ridden-bubble; every time there is a chance I might fail because I don't know what to do, I have a reputation of always getting my shit done and it being good. While that is a wonderful reputation, I have no skills on how to handle it if something changes.
So I want to fail. I want to bomb a test, misplace something at work, show up to a rehearsal at the wrong time. Something, anything, that will teach me how to accept I was wrong, that I messed up, and develop the skills to fix it, and to be able to know that every one messes up sometimes, it won't change who I am. My failures will only make me better, stronger and more innovative. I can tell myself all of these things right now, but I won't believe them until I experience it.
My hope is that after my failure, I will be less stressed about the future, I won't need 5 different hour by hour schedules, or stay up over 24 hours working on projects, I will be able to take better care of myself because I will know that no matter what happens, I will be okay. What ever my failure is I'll have survived it, so I'll be able to survive what ever else comes my way. Because I failed and the world didn't end.
