From the Tower
By Kathryna Hoyman · Managing Editor
Perhaps the only Taylor Swift lyrics I’ve truly related to are from her song “Nothing New:” “How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?”
In anticipation of my graduation this year, I keep finding myself looking back at my freshman self, who, in hindsight, seemed so confident and capable. I remember pulling all-nighters like they were nothing and taking up extracurriculars like it didn’t faze me at all. I now find myself thinking that my freshman self could do all the things my junior self is unable to accomplish.
I assume I’m not the only one, either. The pace of college comes with many successes, but also countless low grades, awkward interactions, missed opportunities and humiliating moments. Three or four years’ worth of these experiences and the realization of failure that comes with them wears on the confidence of all students.
Each rejection from an opportunity that was thought to be guaranteed, every relationship breakup that seems far too personal to be fair and each instance where willpower proves to be inadequate chips away at the ego that most 18-year-olds enter college with. The world, which was once our oyster, proves bigger and tougher than we ever thought, and we ourselves are so small.
But perhaps there is something wonderful about that. Maybe every time we trip in front of a professor, give an answer in class that is wildly incorrect or get stood up for a meal date, we are blessedly reminded of our smallness and our humanity, which demand dependence. These minor defeats and frustrations can serve us if we let them teach us humility instead of growing bitter toward ourselves and our limits. It is good for every individual to feel the weight of their fallibility at times and to recognize that we are not perfectly reliable, even to ourselves.
The more we do, the more we will fail, and utter stagnancy is too high a price to pay to completely avoid mistakes and embarrassments. Both failures we are culpable of and accidents we couldn’t have anticipated break down our youth-induced ego, and for those of us who truly want to learn, this is beneficial rather than degrading.
Not much can be learned when we regard ourselves as altogether capable, for intentional learning requires recognition of the gap between where you are and where you want to be. It seems then that college, with the frequent failings and floundering it entails, teaches us to be students of life who are eager for growth.
If we let the distinction between us and those we look up to motivate us to learn rather than cripple us in insecurity, we will develop a skill that will be applicable throughout our entire lives. It is no secret that everyone makes mistakes, so it seems better to invest in learning the art of letting our errors have a positive impact and push us to grow rather than investing in the pursuit of trying to eradicate every failing and facing self-inflicted chastisement each time we fumble.
While “knowing everything at 18 but nothing at 22” is supposed to imply regression, it gives us an acceptance of our need for more learning, which in its own way is progression.
It seems there is also something to be said about not taking yourself too seriously. If the embarrassment of faceplanting in SHAL Courtyard or getting a C- on your transcript is what it takes to strip you off a pedestal and actively pursue learning, then, in time, these experiences will be well worth it.
