Fear of Failure

For this blog post, I wanted to share my views and feelings on one of the toughest decisions of my life, dropping out of college. So it's a personal blog post, and purely my own opinions. Enjoy :)

When I was 17, my health deteriorated to the point where I could no longer attend 6th form college, leading to me having to eventually make the decision to drop out. This is no easy decision; abandoning your education goes against all your instincts, but when your body is unable to cope, there really is no other choice.

The decision to drop out of college was not an easy one for me, and I know there are plenty of fellow M.E sufferers who have faced the same dilemma of putting their health first. Throughout my school life I was a fairly high achiever, I did well in most of my subjects and managed to get good grades. My GCSE grades will always be slightly tinged with disappointment for me because, before I fell ill, I was predicted As and A*s. This was never going to be achieveable after missing so much schooling through years 10 and 11, not to mention the fact I was still battling my symptoms every day.


I've always said my doing well at school was a product of my fear of failure; to me, I just couldn't face the idea of letting myself and other people down. I had to try my best and aim for good grades. But pulling out of college and becoming something of a "school drop out" has all the connotations of failure, one of my biggest fears.


The way we are brought up these days is to be told that qualifications are everything; that without all our GCSEs we can not possibly get anywhere in life. Schools and parents are constantly drilling it in to us from such a young age that we don't want to become bin men or work in a fast food outlet. The pressure to avoid this seemingly dreadful life is huge. I took a lot of comfort in the fact that secondary schools these days care mostly about their league tables, as opposed to personal achievements of their students. Sure, there are certain teachers who will take an interest in their students, and who care about what happens once they move on in to the big wide world, but at the end of the day if a school wants to look good, it needs pupils to get high grades.


Dropping out of school to focus on my health wasn't a failure. It was the greatest decision I ever made, because my body could relax without fear of stress induced relapses, and I had more time and energy to put in to getting myself better. But there is one thing I regret, and that's not realising that school isn't everything earlier on in my life. Even before I got ill, I fear I wasted some of the best years of my life stressing over school work instead of having fun. Don't get me wrong, you can still do well at school and have fun, and I'm in no way implying that everyone should doss around and skip classes, because I'm not. I'm saying that the stress associated with the fear of failing was just wasted energy.


I've learnt from this period in my life, and even when I go on to work (when I'm well enough) I will make sure that I enjoy myself, and not work myself in to a hole. I'm an ambitious person, but that doesn't mean I need to sacrifice any kind of happiness and enjoyment I can get from work.


For me, one quote that helps me realise that however my health may be, there are more important things was this quote-


It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default. - J. K. Rowling.


I don't want to be one of the people who hasn't lived; I want to learn from every experience. After all, getting ill has turned out to be more educational than any school course.

My thing worth sharing, in keeping with my blog, is the full J. K. Rowling quote I used above, which can be found here. :) Thank you for reading!

Until next time,

Sarah x