Mondays I have my Psych class. I’m retaking it because I didn’t do too hot the first time around. I was sitting in class and there was this student that obviously was struggling. He was asking lots of questions, getting lots of questions wrong but he was trying, his eyes were glued to the board. Okay so there are many of us, including myself, which’ll have a tough time in class or jobs or interviews etc. It’s life, it happens. What really drew my attention was the classes reaction to this guy. I saw looks of disbelief, I heard loud sighs, students looking at each other, and I just thought to myself (excuse my French), “what the fuck?”.
Okay so you know how we’ve all been told, “making mistakes is the key to learning”, or “failure leads to success”. Yeah, those common phrases that you and I ignore because they’re not specific enough and they’re too general. Instead, we want to hear exactly what we’re feeling from someone else, that way we know that someone else is going through the same thing and we can relate. Well, that’s what happened to me. It’s a weird feeling when you think of these very popular phrases and then you realize that you’re in the middle of it. You’re living it and you think, “wow that quote actually makes sense, it’s not bullshit”.
I swear, the longer I’m in college the less the students seem focused on learning. Think back to when you were in class or if you are currently, when was the last time you saw someone struggle? When was the last time someone was getting everything wrong and asking lots of questions. The sad part is that you probably can’t remember, I know I can’t prior to this incident. It’s so COOL to just sit there and not ask questions because that’s what everyone is doing. It’s so COOL to sigh at each other when someone is struggling and think, “Oh my god this class is so easy, why is he asking these questions”. College nowadays is so focused around your image in the eyes of other students that most students end up not understanding the material or they think they do, and end up failing tests and having a tougher time in college overall.
This was exactly me last year and that’s the reason I’m retaking the class. It’s a gen-ed course and firstly I wasn’t even applying myself so asking questions is the best I could’ve done last year. However, I didn’t and so I’m here but the point is, it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes. No employer looks on your resume for how many years it took you to complete college, most don’t even look at GPA. There is so much more to success than getting all the answers right or acing all of your classes. So as much as I want to end this post with a cliche quote you’ve most likely heard before, I want to clarify that this was an experience of mine. It’s not some line in a book, this is my life right here and although we may know deep down that these quotes are 100% right as we ignore them, it’s one thing to read a quote than to live it. I don’t know if the kid will ace the exam and eventually the class, but I am sure that whatever material he found confusing, he now understands. I’d say that’s a tiny moment of success.
Road to Happiness 