FINAL EXAMS
Many of the web journalists I follow are in the throes of final exams, working to prepare for the exams, fearing the results, planning for the summer and looking forward to the next phases of their lives, whether the next year in school, entrance into full-time work, graduate school or vacations. I'm struck by how similar their feelings are to what I felt when I was their age. We all want to do well, we all have some level of fear about changes and next phases in our lives, we all think that if we can pass the final exam everything will get easier.
However, at my age, I understand something more than I did when I was young. I now understand that there is no final exam. The exams I took in school were not final, they were the first of many exams I've had to face. I still face exams every day, still have to meet new problems and opportunities, still fear next phases. I now know that things didn't get easier because I passed earlier exams, that I can't rest easy because of the past, that I have to continue to prepare for the next exams and that that is the way I want it to be. And so it will be for my younger friends who are still in school: If they didn't have exams to prepare for, challenges to meet, life would be empty and boring.
Let's try to change our vocabulary and eliminate the word "final" from the periodic exams we face. Let's try to reduce the fear of exams by recognizing that there are second chances: If we fail one day's exams there will be another day. And let's welcome the challenge of exams: They give us the chance to see where we are in our lives, how we compare to others, how much we have learned. As long as we do our best, we can't fail, we can only learn more about ourselves. And the more we learn about ourselves, the more challenges we meet, the better people we will be,
Welcome "final" exams: They're one more step on the long road of our lives, on the long road to becoming better in life.
5-21-01
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