Assignment 19: Angela Maske

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received in my life was definitely rather unconventional. It was my eighth grade year, and I was visiting a family friend in Boston, Massachusetts. We were talking about my grades and I mentioned that I had received straight A's that previous semester. I vividly remember her telling me: "you need to get a B sometime." At the time, I rejected this piece of advice. After all, I thought, why would I purposely get a lower grade? But what I have come to realize is that she didn't want me to aim for a B, but rather not to take grades so seriously. To the typical high achieving student, that still sounds bad. But I think she wanted me to realize that it's okay to live a little, to let loose, and most of all, it's okay to make mistakes. It's taken me a while, but I've started accepting the fact that my life right now is really just a small piece of my life overall, and an infinitely smaller blip in the grand scheme of things. Failure is inevitable, and what better time to come to terms with it than during the time in which I am forming my personal identity and sense of life?