”Congratulations! Your grades are flawed with C’s and D’s – it is now determined that you shall lead a life as a penniless hermit in the constant depths of despair and destitution. Don’t try to fight it; embrace your fate and accept the fact that you are worth nothing and that you cannot do anything to change that. Grades are of the upmost importance and will unquestionably be a part of your soul – following, shadowing, haunting you for the rest of your life.”
That is society, peer pressure, guilds of education; all creeping up behind the typical, stressed out student upon the receiving of grades at the end of the school year. The previously pleasing prospect of summer days with buddies is promptly replaced with bummer days of studies – alright, perhaps not literally, but the thought may occur to those of (scary) scholarly zeal… and it shouldn’t! Don’t let a letter of the alphabet define you.
Now, before I risk sounding like a wannabe school guru, I have this to say: I’m just another run-of-the-mill anxious wreck trying to bring alleviation to myself and those in schooling strifes. As much as everything and everyone exclaims that perfect grades are the key to automatic and inevitable success, we should all try and come to the realisation that they aren’t! Just by having a pristine report card doesn’t mean that you’ll end up being Apple’s next CEO, a sterling British prime minister or the next creative mastermind – these three ideal triumphs were perfectly snapped up by those who did not excel in school – namely by none other than Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill and Walt Disney.
These three figures of aspirational victory are acclaimed for what they have done and not how they did education-wise, for all three of them did poorly in school. Steve Jobs didn’t get good grades in high school but later became an icon for the world of developing technology. Winston Churchill was forced to retake classes but managed to become the UK’s most commendable Prime Minister. Walt Disney was a high school dropout but revolutionized the art of entertainment. If these three valuable examples of stellar success going hand in hand with the complete oblivion of school performance can’t sway your views, then alas; so be it. It’s just worth considering the fact that perfect grades don’t guarantee future security, in the same way that bad grades don’t predict perpetual doom. As hard as it may seem, I think we should all have confidence and motivation replace the common hassles of high school.
So, the next time you get an unsatisfactory grade, don’t go around whining about its atrocity, how the teacher so obviously has a hidden agenda against you or how your life is going to be a miserable mess like the puddle of vomit you’ll be mopping in your failed future occupation as Professional Floor Mopper. Your report card is not a precursor to your destiny!