College Food For Thought - Success and Failure

As I sit here, reflecting on the year as many of you are quite possibly doing, I am just truly thinking about my place in the world. We grow up believing the fairy tales. You know them. Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny. Feel good stories extend through much of our lives, as we believe in this funny little thing: hope. Hope can extend to different magnitudes for different people. People “hope” for world peace, and they “hope” for themselves.

We rarely accept the fact that in place of true hope and kindness, society is filled with negativity. We grow up in a world where people are constantly at ends with each other. The negative atmosphere is particularly prominent around the times we celebrate as joyous, like the holidays. Social media doesn’t help, as people “hope” for what other people have, failing to work for the desire. This, in my eyes, has spiraled into people that “hope” and people that “act.”

And so, the dichotomy exists.

Some of the smartest people don’t say what they WANT for the new year, but instead they go about their business striving to embody every aspect achieving their goals. Why do we set aspirations that require a small amount of dedication yet give into the temptation of laziness and failure?

But that’s how it goes. People aspire. People talk up stories to either seem like a hero or to win over people from an ideological standpoint. Well, it’s likely that none of us are revolutionists, but we can surely break the precedence that was set before us. People either have an internal or external locus of control. The former is what I use: everything I do affects everything that happens to me. I am in control, and I am responsible for my own actions. Some, unfortunately, follow the latter, which is to say that they blame others or their circumstances for what they have. This is the opposite of accountability, this is the victimization we use to put our problems as a result of what everyone else has done.

Don’t the “world” detract from your abilities. People that do this are the people who “wish” and “hope” for things to be handed to them, and those same people complain when results are not spontaneously produced without the proper catalyst.

I am a big believer in letting people make mistakes. Some of the most successful people failed before they flourished. Michael Jordan. Steve Jobs. The list goes on and on. However, we should continue to spread positivity. Be more accepting. Take risks (as long as they aren’t going to be detrimental). But do not fall into the trap of negativity, it’s not worth it. Use failure as a positive. Allow it to fuel the brain and instill a sense of urgency for improvement. Letting failure bog you down is the same as giving up.

Negativity is the product of negativity and the catalyst for negativity. If someone insults you, I’m sure you wouldn’t smile and compliment them. It’s just not a logical sequence of events. However, that doesn’t mean that we need to feed into the negativity. This helps no one. Is being rude the ultimate goal for an individual? I’d be disappointed if so.

So, hold the door open for people. Read. Talk to new people without preconceived ideas of who they are or what they believe in. But do not, under any circumstances, make New Year’s resolutions that you won’t keep. Draft a plan and follow through with it. This is the only way that your year will be meaningful. Dissociate from people who hinder this ability and disband ideas from your head of what you can’t do. After all, one’s number one supporter must be oneself.

Starting small is an easier way to stay true but allowing ideas and circumstances to flourish into a larger, harder, and more meaningful picture and direction is important as well. The logic stands that you MUST take your first step before taking your second, so not getting caught up in the steps that are a distance away is beneficial for focus and direction. But you have to continue taking steps, you cannot merely stop or digress.

It is the waning hours of the year, and people reflect on what they have accomplished in the past year. Not what they said they were going to, what they actually did do. As I presented earlier, there are people who “hope” and those who “act.” Therefore, I don’t like to use the phrase “speak it into existence.”

Act it into existence.

About the author: Alex Jensen, 19, son of Connecticut Patch sports editor Tim Jensen, is a student at Castleton University in Vermont, double-majoring in political science and history, with plans to attend law school after completing his undergraduate work in 2020. He is a 2017 graduate of Enfield High School, after attending Enrico Fermi High School for three years before the two schools merged. He is a competitive powerlifter who holds state records in the squat, bench, deadlift and total for the USPA 83 kg (181 lb.) weight class among 18- and 19-year-olds. His blog posts may be found at www.thealexjensen.com.

Photo courtesy of Alex Jensen

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