In Buddhism, we believe in impermanence, that nothing lasts forever. Whether it’s relationships, feelings, or where you are in life, I’ve listened to many people talk about how we should express gratitude that we get to experience life in the present, since we never know when it’ll be over. Over the last four years, this concept followed me outside of my temple and into school.
From kindergarten to eighth grade, I was good at math and bad at writing, simple as that. Unlike numbers, which seemed to come naturally to me like a native language, every English class I took felt like taking stabs in the dark. Who knows if I used that quote correctly or if that symbol really meant anything? I was getting an A, so I must be doing okay. Coming out of middle school, I already had a vision of the person I was and who I was going to be for the rest of my academic career.
But high school proved different. Moping out of the first week of Andy Evans’ English I Honors class, I sobbed to my mother that I must not be cut out for such a rigorous course. As tears flowed down my cheeks, I felt angry that my mom stubbornly refused to let me quit the class. Couldn’t she see that the ‘D’ I had earned on my first essay made evident my incompetence and ultimate stupidity regarding the subject? With time though, my writing improved as I sat through each class. Essay after essay, my heart jumped as I scanned Mr. Evans’ green scribbles throughout the paragraphs, each comment a mark of improvement. Rather than dreading getting my grade back, I started looking forward to writing in class. While that first essay had felt like a permanent stain on my worth as a student, my distress ultimately gave way to excitement, the joy of improving outweighing the anticipation of failure.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), that same feeling happened over and over during high school. Remember how I thought I was good at STEM? Physics proved me wrong time and time again. Confusing lessons and failed tests once again gave rise to what felt like an endless stream of tears and frustration. As I sat in my bedroom, I couldn’t understand why none of the material was clicking to me. Khan Academy videos, AP Classroom practice quizzes, textbook chapters—it felt like I had tried everything and came up with nothing. But my dad said something that felt really crazy, even though it’s really obvious: it’s not that you’re stupid; you just don’t understand it yet.
Wow, that’s crazy. But really, it’s true. Before the first day of junior year, I barely understood calculus. If you asked me what a derivative was, I would probably just spit out some random rules for differentiation based on rote memorization. I remembered looking at the Calc AB practice exam we had been given on the first day of school, panicking because I couldn’t remember the limit definition of a derivative. But then I recalled how happy and smart and awesome I felt when I took my test on parametric equations and polar coordinates because I knew how to do every single question thrown at me. So when my dad said that to me, I didn’t scoff and say “no kidding” because that’s exactly how learning works, and I had experienced that when I was in calculus, and I would do it again in physics.
All this to say, no matter how definite you feel that your life is over because you didn’t get an A in AP Lang or about how horribly you’re gonna do on a test, just know that feeling is impermanent. In six months, you won’t remember how anxious you felt about your upcoming AP test or your next chemistry quiz. Those days of distress will be over, and you’ll be worried about something that feels even more monumental. When I think back on my time at Westmont, a lot of my memories (especially the past two years) have been filled with a looming anxiety of imminent failure. Maybe this isn’t the most healthy advice, but I got through a lot of it by thinking about what I would be doing after the insurmountable task. After submitting my final college application in March, it felt crazy that in two months I would know where I was going to be spending the next four years of my life, but that’s just how life is. While the present feels unbeatable, just remember that this too shall pass.