by Peerzada Zubair
Greatness is not a joyride; it is full of adversity and obstacles. Now what matters here is how bad do you want it? How dedicated are you to achieving extraordinary grades? When you get up in the morning don’t look at your WhatsApp, don’t think about yesterday’s struggles. Focus.
Board results are out and it is a tough time for students who have either scored low grades or failed. But this is not the end of the road. Instead, it is the doorway to new success in life, and surely that demands a positive attitude and support from parents.
Anxiety and tension also grip those students who have passed with flying colours till they settle down into their next targets. It is a very tough time for students who have appeared for their boards and semester. Peer pressure and rising expectations from parents are why students are always under pressure to perform well in academics.
Bad Grades, No Worries
Getting bad grades once in a while is normal with everyone. Blame it on the bad sporting culture of the country or lack of awareness apart from mainstream courses, finding employment or admission into your next educational institute has become very difficult.
Under this pressure, people forget that there are many more important things to do in life apart from attaining good grades. There are examples of people like Steve Jobs, MS Dhoni, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and many others who have achieved a lot of success despite not being great in academics. Apple wouldn’t have been such a big brand if Jobs wouldn’t have quit college mid-way. Grades do matter, but they aren’t everything and people need to realize it soon.
Hunting for academic prowess results in loss of creativity and productivity to an extent. Corporates now ask for individuals who are better at applied things such as communication skills, aptitude and better presentation apart from academic knowledge.
Academics Is All Right
Society has perhaps placed too much bet on academics, enhancing it as everything for the ability of an individual and future success. That is where we seem to have lost the focus on happiness. Each individual has different abilities, talents and strengths and grades should not be considered as a parameter to judge anyone.
It is all about taking a decision that you feel, will give you satisfaction in life. Society might raise questions, but it is your moral values and ability that will define you as a person. We always judge a person based on either his status or income. “Better the pay, better the value in society”. And the same goes for students: “Better the grades, better the treatment from people around.”
Parental Pressures
This play with superiority and inferiority complexes has been around for quite a long time. Parents, who do not want their children to end up like them, put pressure on children to pursue what society values the most. And if they cannot adhere to what their parents say, the result is devaluation and ignorance.
For instance, a student interested in cinematography can end up taking science for higher education only to please his/her parents.
While their parents’ aim is to ensure a secure future for their children, what they trade-off are their children’s dreams, passion, and interests. This ultimately results in the student losing interest in what he/she studying and they stop rising to the expectations of parents.
Not only does it frustrate the parents who have invested plenty of money in their children’s education, but they also fear that society will start treating their children as it treated them throughout their lives.
A Two Way Process
A career choice has to be a two-way process between guardians and their children. Education must be a base for self-discovery. There may be people who are weak in theory or technical subjects but excel in arts or sports. People in every sector are capable of fulfilling their dreams and leading happy life.
There are various sectors unexplored that will give employment to a good number of people. The mantra “Your grades don’t define you” has spread around. To be fair, it is true and something you should keep in mind. But many students have warped the meaning of this saying into thinking grades don’t matter and you don’t need to try to do well in school. But is this really the kind of mindset we should carry around as students? No, your grades aren’t everything, but not caring or trying will inevitably result in more stress when you get to the college admission process and you can’t get in anywhere because you have no reasonable excuse for why your grades aren’t great.
No Grade Chase, But..
It is not the grade you should be chasing, it’s the individual that is capable of achieving those grades that you should be chasing. You have got to study the character of those students who are achieving fine grades because that is when you see exactly what it takes, the daily habits that are followed religiously, the hours of studying late at night, while everyone else is sleeping, the 100 per cent attendance in the class and when you study the character of students getting poor grades you will see failure everywhere, you will see it falling apart, the procrastination taking control, the lack of drive and focus, skipping classes when they just don’t feel like it.
Getting good grades will never decide our future but working hard to achieve these fine grades will definitely help us to make our future better. It has been well said, “There is no substitute for hard work”.
Life is going to be hard. If you go about it and do those hard things, those things that no one wants to do then life will be easy. It is a choice that you have to make. You have to step up and walk that path. Take that road, that lonely dark cold road, that road so many people don’t want to take. That’s when you are going to truly find yourself.
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Attitude Is Important
Attitude is more important than education, money, circumstances, failures, successes than what other people think, say, or do. It’s more important than appearances or skill. We have to choose every day the attitude that we are going to come to life. You can’t change what grades you got in the past, the exams that you failed, you can’t even change what you did yesterday, but you can change how you will attack tomorrow.
Greatness is not a joyride, it is full of adversity and obstacles. Now what matters here is how bad do you want it? How dedicated are you to achieving extraordinary grades? When you get up in the morning don’t look at your WhatsApp, don’t think about yesterday’s struggles. Focus. You have to make a decision to stop making excuses and get it done. There is nobody in this world that’s going to get you what you want. You have to go out there and get that what you want by studying hard.
Being talented is not good enough.
(The author is pursuing Integrated PG in Zoology from the Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Srinagar. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Kashmir Life.)
