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Regrettably, I view life as a sort of checklist. Tasks are compartmentalized and completed sequentially: pleasure is found between the ever-growing mountains of responsibility. Or at least I’ve thought that way for the past 18 years of my life. High school presented me with some of the most profitable opportunities, yet some of the most complacent habits I have ever found myself to practice. I viewed those four years as a race, where I could take breaks, but I had to drive to the end to achieve some sort of finish line. I have immediately found that the finish line has tuned into the starting gate for more daunting trials and obstacles.
University is a labyrinth of possibility and self-control, in which most students end up losing themselves. If you’re anything like myself, you have very high aspirations for yourself and your career. Within and outside of the classroom, I have a set of standards that I hold myself to. The cardinal difference between High School and University, in my experience, is that in University not everything can be achieved, and that presents the thesis of my essay: accountability.
Many a “high-achieving” student has the propensity to aim loftily in their goals. This works out for most in High School; however, by the time their first 60% comes around on a paper, many are left frustrated, sore, and searching for a scapegoat. A low-test grade, a lack of understanding during a particular unit, the knocking of points for not asking questions in class can all be attributed to a sinister professor whose one goal is to endanger the GPAs of undergraduates. Surely, one would utter, my lack of sleep, preparation, and focus in class are not to be at play here; it must be the professor. I have found myself in this situation many times throughout the first semester. It is an unfortunate cocktail of sleep deprivation, over-confidence, regret, and cockiness. This syndrome extends farther than the reaches of academia. Many young adults attempt to cover their shortcomings with excuses and half-baked rationales as to why they are worthy, despite contradictory evidence, of something that they are not. What was said at a party, what was uttered in a heated debate, a wrong move that endangers a friend, a moral shortcoming that leaves one in the dust are all illustrations of mishappenings that we are so eager to allocate blame. We are keen to remove our identity from an embarrassing, narrow-sighted situation that we are the sole creators of. Many, I included, find it immensely difficult to take ownership of a messy situation, internalize it, and move forward with haste and grace.
Fortunately, there is an antidote to this plague. This antidote comes in the form of a reconfiguring of one’s psychology. By this, I am describing the properties of accountability. Little can be done by way of personal growth until one is fully accountable for their thoughts, words, actions, and lack thereof. It is unpleasant and often painful to take accountability. It requires removing oneself from a throne of moral invincibility and dealing with the world's sobering reality. Of the things I have learned in this first semester, one of the most crucial is that everyone can do immense harm. Every human is capable of hateful things that can downgrade the worth of another. I would like to offer a hint of optimism here by asserting that accountability, on its face, is one of the best cures for this hatefulness. Realizing what you have said, done, or didn’t do is one of the only ways that you can rectify an unfortunate situation. Instead of blaming a low grade on a midterm to a professor who “doesn’t teach,” blame yourself for not studying enough or not asking questions in class.
I still struggle with this. I have a hard time admitting fault or realizing that I am the one who is to blame in many situations. Through this struggle, I have also found that viewing myself, objectively, as a third person yields the most prudent path forward in the process of reconciliation.
I am confident that one can derive that they are error-prone, with the potential to make mistakes at every turn. People in today’s environment are overstimulated, and this only leads to the inevitability of human error. It is the real test of one’s moral fiber to take accountability and move forward. It is exceedingly convenient to hide away, reject responsibility, and allocate blame. While this may be fruitful in the short-term, the long game requires ownership of one's self. Through this, we can only hope to equip ourselves with the tools of adulthood and growth.
Caleb Aridano is a McConnell Scholar in the Class of 2024. He studies political science and English at the University of Louisville.