I highly recommend becoming involved because it enhances the college experience through exposure to new people, ideas, and offers “real world-esque” experience before entering the real world. But joining organizations and seeking honors and awards in college may also introduce many people to failure or rejection for the first time, and often it comes as quite a surprise.
It is human nature to be angry, dejected or hurt when we do not get what we want. When it is membership in an organization, the entire group becomes stupid, cult-like and snobbish. Their selection process becomes biased and clearly the organization is not worth joining, if they do not want you to be a member. If it is an award, the person who won, instead of you, usually becomes a cheater, a thief or a liar, and the idea that they earned the award over you becomes absurd. After these feelings subside the one that usually comes out on top is a feeling that you deserved what you wanted, perhaps even more than someone else, but you did not get it.
Recently, I sat in a room with amazing people who have made significant contributions to the LSU community. All of them had earned the privilege they were receiving but there were probably just as many people who could have been there but for whatever reason were not. This experience made me question what it is to be deserving of something, and if we should get everything we deserve. I have concluded that there are lots of things in life that people deserve, and though we may not always get the things we want, we should be thankful that we do not get everything in life that we deserve.
Imagine for a moment that we did get everything we deserve all of the time. Most of us would be friendless, homeless and penniless. Some of us would be fingerless, armless and headless. Others would constantly be slapped on the face, swiftly kicked in the rear or choking on the foot stuck in our mouth. If for every mean thought or thing we said, we were instantly repaid, life would be an endless cycle of insults, hurt and revenge.
Bad things happen to good people all the time, and good things happen to bad people all of the time too. Did Rodney King deserve to be beaten up like that? Should Princess Diana have died in such a horrible way? Why did a serial killer ruin the lives of so many families in Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas last year? Does a person who does not know that tuna is fish and not chicken (so what if the label says Chicken of the Sea) deserve to be a millionaire?
Though there are times when we do not get what we feel we deserve, there are probably more times when we received awards, honors, memberships that we wanted but did not deserve. In life we must take the good and the bad. Sometimes we get the good when we deserve the bad, and sometimes we get the bad when we deserve the good.
So to everyone mourning what you wanted but did not get, the good news is there are more ways than one to get involved on campus, other awards and honors to apply for, and usually more than one chance to apply. Just because you did not get in the first time does not mean you will never get in, maybe it just means that this time is not the right time for you. Maybe not receiving that award or membership you wanted means you will have the time for a fabulous internship opportunity, time to focus on academics or the opportunity to start your own organization.
So next time you do not get something you feel you deserve, get mad, be hurt and then get over it. Realize that eventually we all experience failure (in some shape or form), and it is easier to deal with in college than in the “real world.”
Then be thankful because instead of what you didn’t get you might have gotten what you really deserve, and sometimes that has the potential to be much worse.