Too often, people find themselves thinking that success is only achieved through wealth and power.
While those things may sound appealing to most, the road is challenging and some people feel like failures if they don’t make millions right away.
The journey of getting to a place where one feels as though they’ve accomplished certain personal goals is overtaken by what others may consider to be successful.
As students at Chico State, success means being prepared with the right attitude, skills and habits of lifelong learning in order to be useful members of a global society. However, I believe that no matter how much work a college student puts in, most of this effort isn’t accounted for if one doesn’t receive some sort of medal, award or recognition.
Originally born in Guadalajara, Mexico, success has become much more meaningful to me than just receiving that golden ticket to the big world. Despite the obstacles I had to overcome, I went from a little girl who hardly knew a word of English to an educated young lady who’s going to graduate in less than two years.
I’m successful in the sense that I moved out of home, I’m getting my bachelor’s degree and know what career path I want to take. I set my mind to something and I didn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of me reaching my personal goal.
Whether it’s making it to class every day or getting all of the week’s homework done, recognizing the little things can go a long way and make people feel more valuable.
With the competition students face when getting a career, it’s easy to forget about the little accomplishments simply because they aren’t living up to society’s standards of being “successful.”
Bill Gates once said, “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure,” and I completely agree with that. Not every Chico State graduate will land a job offer the second they graduate, so should that mean they’re failures?
Absolutely not.
Having gratitude for the smaller achievements in life allows more young adults to not only enjoy their journey in life more, but also gives them the encouragement needed to keep going.
Veronica De La Cruz can be reached at [email protected] or @Veronica_dlc on Twitter.
