Do Your Best and Forget The Rest by Rebecca

Do Your Best and Forget The Rest by Rebecca - November 2018 Scholarship Essay

“Do your best and forget the rest.”

Growing up, my parents must have repeated this phrase to me thousands of times. Every time I came home disappointed in myself for receiving a grade lower than an A on a paper, they would raise the question, “Well, did you do your best?” I would reply with a despondent yes, and their response was always, “Then that is all you can ask of yourself! Try to learn for next time and give yourself a break.” Every time I stayed up until 3 AM trying to achieve perfection on a paper, every time I studied for so many hours that I could not absorb any more information, I would mutter those words to myself: “do your best and forget the rest.”

As students, we tend to fall into one of two categories. The first are the students who do the bare minimum in order to receive the grade they desire, even if it means turning in work they know is not the highest quality. These students need to embody the first part of this quote, meaning that they need to start doing their best.

The second category of students, which I usually fall into, are the students who need to learn to “forget the rest.” These students nearly drive themselves mad trying to achieve perfection, yet they are never satisfied with their work.
Neither of these mindsets of students is better than the other, as both of these perspectives require students to neglect the purpose of learning. We have become so obsessed with our learning in relation to the grading system that we forget the purpose is to gain knowledge!

Therefore, in order to truly embody this quote, I must perform to the best of my ability, learning all that I can, and be content with my work, no matter of where I fall in comparison to others. To me, this quote is about embracing the true purpose of learning, something that we seem to forget in the midst of stress from papers and exams.

Learning has the possibility to create a massive impact on the world; it is the greatest privilege and the greatest responsibility. Our choice to learn now, to do our best, has the power to innovate years from now, in ways we cannot yet even imagine. There are countless issues in our world that need solving, and as students, it is our job to equip ourselves with the necessary knowledge and skills to tackle those problems in the future. Whether it is labor and sex trafficking, mass shootings, or one of the other hundreds of issues faced by our world today, there is no end to the problems that we must solve together. Someday, soon, it will be our generation making the shots, creating new plans, innovating broken systems; we will be the ones responsible for creating the change in our country and in our world. Knowledge is the key to all of it.