In a world where we can get so mixed up about being the best, being able to get this GPA, score this contact for networking, I think we are forgetting that the ability to comprehend, reflect and resolve is something that is becoming a lost art form. I see this lot around my peers during the school year especially in group projects. We are so set on just making the best product at the pleasure of the professor that we make ourselves miserable and yet don’t learn much from these projects other than how much school actually sucks. Our ability to be creative and innovative is also destructed by the need to be the best when in this same creativity and innovation could make you the best.
This past week I came across the article entitled, “Don’t Send Your Kids to Ivy League Schools”* saying how these elite schools turn kids into zombies. It was very interesting take on the subject but I think this is happening at most schools not just the Ivy League ones. The idea to succeed and thrive is something that has become misinterpreted and has been associated with monetary value. What does it actually mean to be the best? I think a lot of young people make the mistake of setting up expectations on what success actually means to the point where they are constantly disappointing themselves. I am actually really reluctant to lay out what my definition of success is because I know it is different from everyone but I would like to share that I think a lot of success has to do with failing…a lot. Failing does not mean failing, you just simply discover what works and what doesn’t work and I think there is beauty in this true beauty that a lot of people in my generation, those too high strung on being the best cannot see because they refuse to.
I’ve made a number of mistakes this past summer being on my own in Chicago and in preparing to go abroad for the year. I embarrassingly paid my first month rent late on accident and forgot to tell my landlord, I broke a shelf and wasted 200 pages of paper on my first day of my internship, I got letters mixed up in some very important people’s email address which then caused a bounce and a very delayed and unnecessary miscommunication, I took my time shipping out books that I missed the pickup time for the courier and cost a client a pretty penny and oh my god I’m going to stop there before this turns into a novel.
In great Kara fashion, I would like to wrap up this post with a quote from of course, Orange is the New Black, when Piper gets furlough to see her dying grandma; she actually only gets in time to just go to her grandma’s funeral. In Piper’s eulogy she states, “Life is made in the mistakes.” And this I believe could not be any truer. Stop setting up yourself failure but being too afraid to fail. You are going to miss out on what it actually means to live and succeed.
* Article Here : http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere