Not Everything Is Good.
And it doesn’t have to be. Maybe that’s a good thing.
When my eldest son was seven or eight years old, he started complaining about being harassed on the school bus. In a bid not to distort his image of a good world and wishing to shield him from its vicissitudes, I sought to explain his bus mates’ actions as consequences of them perhaps not being as loved or as attended to as he was, further underlining my own image as the loving, caring mother, raising a good, gentle citizen of the world.
It didn’t fly. One day, exasperated by my inability to ease his burden and to logically explain his hardship with his transport mates, I resorted to screaming that sometimes, things just are! That sometimes kids are just nasty and there was simply no rhyme nor reason to it and that that was precisely why I had chosen to send him to school as opposed to offering him a much better education at home because he needed to go out there and have social interactions and understand that some things just are what they are and that not everything and everyone was good!
That seemed to do the trick and the complaints, at least, stopped.
But today, as a parent and as a university admissions consultant, I still find myself chasing that which is good: I want my children to get good grades, I want them to find good careers, I want them to be happy and therefore to be successful and satisfied. I want the same for the students I work with — I want to help them find a good place where they will thrive, I want to help them write a good essay, I want them to have a good experience. I want them to find good careers, to be successful and satisfied, therefore to be happy.
But life, like any good story character, is flawed and the line to happiness and fulfillment is not a straight one. We don’t always have to make the right choice. We don’t always have to take the right track — most often the learning, the growth, is in the corner left unturned. I say this to myself as well as to every other parent or student.
Scott Galloway described life as a series of micro-decisions that build on one another. To that structure I would add a hint of uncertainty, a sprinkling of that which we cannot control. What we need our students to build is not necessarily a portfolio of work, but a body of resilience.
Instead of making our children and students constantly seek that which is good, perhaps we should encourage them to look for that which will help them grow. Instead of seeking to help our children find their comfort by being in the right place and doing the right thing, maybe we could help them by leaving them alone. Instead of focusing on their grades, perhaps we should focus on their wellbeing. Instead of focusing on the prestigious job, perhaps we should focus on their strengths. Instead of focusing on their success, perhaps we could focus on their happiness.
What I wish for my children and the students I work with is not necessarily the ability to make the right decision instantly, but to be able to understand when they have made a wrong choice and to course correct. What I wish for myself and every parent is the wisdom and the patience to wait and sit this process out.
What I wish for my children, as well as for the students I work with, is not necessarily to live a life full of happiness, but to live a life full of courage. Because ultimately fulfillment comes not from having made all the right choices, but from having surmounted the wrong ones.
Not everything is good. And maybe that’s a good thing.