Recently, all I've been hearing about (besides the election) are complaints about grades...
But do grades really define you? You constantly hear the phrase "grades don't define you"–so often to the point that it becomes white water noise. What does it really mean? In the society we live in, contrary to what it declares, grades seemingly do define you. Students believe that a grade will determine college options which will determine career paths which will determine quality of life. We are rated on a 0.0 to a 5.0 scale. We are placed somewhere between an F and an A. We are judged by the number of APs and honors we take or by our involvement in sports or our achievements in extra curricular activities. We compare numbers against the numbers of others, and really it becomes a number game. Constantly, we are graded and degraded, and still society says, "grades don't define you." But society has it all wrong. It hypocritically declares that grades don't have worth but that a "bad" grade translates to failure to achieve success. It has the wrong goals. We try to please others, instead of ourselves. Many times we even try to please strangers (employers, admissions officers, coaches, etc.) that we barely even know. Why? We want to achieve success and to gain self-worth from a cold audience we don't even know. Instead, if we hope to do our very best and climb a ladder against our "best self" versus against others, we will always meet success. If we surround ourselves with people that don't judge us but love us for who we are (our personalities, our traits, our attributes), we will find that to these people that matter most, we are not just a number. Numbers only define us from the viewpoint of outsiders that do not know us. To the people that matter most, it is our true selves that define us. True, society will not always reward simply being the best you can be, and that is something our generation should strive to fix. But if we achieve self-success, then that is better than any achievement you can get from beating someone else. As hackneyed as it is, "grades DON'T define you." sweet dreams. xoxo, s.k.j.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Hey! Did you know I have another blog? Check it out below:
You can find even more of my blogs below:
Archives
February 2017
Category
All
Check out my food-themed blog as well:
|