Ah finals week. A week of stress, pressure, and a LOT of caffeine. Finals week is what really kicks you in the butt and reminds you that you’re not in high school anymore. Not only do I hate finals week because of the hours upon hours that I spend studying, but I hate finals week because of the way it makes everyone feel. Everyone on campus just seems to be in a perpetual state of stress and despondence. Finals week seems to make everyone question their future and self-worth, so I thought I’d talk about why it’s all going to be okay. This is going to sound kind of deep but here we go.

Atychiphobia - the fear of failure. It ranks as the fifteenth most common fear in the world. Not surprising. We have all felt it at some time or another. Coming from a college student, I can attest that probably all 29,000 students that go to my school are currently experiencing this phobia. The sad truth is that we just do not have faith in ourselves. Unfortunately, finals week brings this out of all of us as we contemplate how one grade in an underclassman class will affect the rest of our life. This is wrong. We are more than our GPA. We are more than our test scores. We are more than all of this. Life sucks sometimes. Sometimes it knocks us on our ass. But as George Custer said “It’s not about how many times you get knocked down that count. It’s how many times you get back up.” In the words of another wise man known as J Cole, “There’s beauty in the struggle.” There’s something beautiful about grinding through a tough time and coming out on top. Sure life is going to knock you down a couple times. But you’re gonna get right back up and be better because of it. That’s what it’s all about right there. Working your butt off to get to the top and then being able to look back and be proud of what you’ve gone through to get to where you are.

We, as students in this generation, have a bad tendency to put all of our self-worth into our grades. Frankly, that’s just ridiculous. I guarantee if you asked Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg what their college GPA was, they couldn’t tell you. This is because it’s not as important as we make it seem. Life goes on and so do we, regardless of what grade you got on your Bio 101 exam. So don’t fret, and have some faith in yourself. Because if you don’t trust yourself, then nobody will.

Frankly, I think that sometimes it isn’t the thought of failure that scares us, but the thought of success. Sometimes, we don’t think that we are worthy of success. Even when we prove that we are in fact worthy and capable of greatness, we tend to push it away because we can’t picture ourselves actually succeeding. This is a shame and when thoughts like these invade our minds I am reminded of one quote that perfectly sums up this article:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson