School has always felt like a strange place for me. When people are younger, school is an amazing place. It’s where your friends are, where you learn exciting and new things, and where you really grow up. As we get older, some of us take school for granted. Material becomes more difficult and complex, where it used to be easy and light. I’ve always had mixed emotions about school. Sometimes it was my favorite place to be. Sometimes I couldn’t leave sooner, but in the end, I always went back.
As we get older, things change around us and my attitude towards school changed as well. This change appeared around my third year of high school. In previous years, I had been academically competitive, not the top of the class but always put my best foot forward. I used to read as many books as possible, never skipping a page. I had adored all my teachers (besides my fourth-grade teacher, she was the absolute worst) and consumed all the knowledge they had shared with me inside class. This had been my general status quo in school, but as I said before this had all changed during the last half of my high school experience.
I am still not sure why I did it or for what reasons, but I allowed my academic career to start slipping from me. I barely managed to keep my head above water junior and senior year of high school. Math and science (which have never been my stronger subjects) had started to really take a toll on myself and my grades. My stronger classes like English, history, and foreign language had all taken a drastic turn. I was becoming less prepared for the future and I felt my academic progression all together stop. I was able to pull myself together for a short time, passing my classes by the skin of my nose and receiving credits for the accelerated classes I had took. During this time, I had somehow managed to be accepted into a university and thought a fresh new start would be the right thing I needed to get my academic career on path.
Coming to college I expected myself to be capable of handling myself and staying on track with new aspirations and desires to succeed. At first this seemed possible, but I had quickly realized this was not the case. My first semester had mimicked my last two years of high school, missing assignments, poor participation, and an inadequate attitude. These actions had terrible consequences as I soon realized. I had fallen so far behind and buried a hole that I thought I couldn’t get out of, I started to believe I wouldn’t be able to pursue my academic dreams and goals.
I was given a second chance. I had started to realize the opportunity given to me could not be taken for granted again. I stuck to it my second semester at school. I had started to realize the work and time I needed to put in to be successful. I also realized that what I wanted in life I had to work for, instead of waiting for everything to fall into place like a row of dominos. These thoughts and ideas followed me into my next semester, and I soon started to rebuild my academic composure and feeling better about myself.
Why is any of this important though? These were all my personal experiences and maybe most readers haven’t experienced the same situation as me. So, who cares?
I didn’t write this post for sympathy or to portray myself as overcoming difficulties in my life. I still struggle with the same tendencies every once in a while. I wrote this post because sometimes you just need to look in front of you to see your issues. I am able to come to terms with my personal struggle with responsibility. I feel it is important that people come to terms with their struggles and flaws if they wish to grow from them. Cliché, right? I would almost agree if I hadn’t taken the time to realize my own flaws. Realizing and addressing one’s flaws opens the possibility to fix these mistakes and improve one’s own outlook. If Pentheus had realized his own hubris would he have lived in The Bacchae and Frenzy? If Joker had put aside his bigotry from the start would he and Noah escaped successfully? Hubris and bigotry contribute to one’s flaws and insecurities and can be detrimental if not properly addressed and corrected, as seen in the outcomes of these two characters.
Everyone says we learn from our mistakes, but how often is this true for some people?
Holding ourselves accountable and realizing our own mistakes makes us grow as people. Learning from these experiences pushes us to do better if we want to succeed. I didn’t realize this at first, but this idea has developed into an important lesson I think about every day.
In the end, it is really our actions that define our outcome. We can either realize our flaws and accept and correct them, or we can choose to ignore them and hope they work themselves out. It is a person’s accountability and responsibility to hold themselves together and work out their issues. Everyone has flaws to their character, it is how we address these flaws that define our outcome.