I go to a medium-sized Catholic school that is very competitive among the top 20 students. Every year the junior class has an awards ceremony that these top students are invited to, and the list of award winners is accessible prior to the ceremony. I just want to first say that I am a straight A student who has taken/will take a total of 9 AP classes, as well as an extra online course that cost me a study hall. I work hard in all of my classes and hardly sleep. I do, however, realize that I didn’t work as hard freshman year and for this reason by GPA is a little below those of my closest friends, who are similarly strong in academics. I saw the list of winners earlier this week and I noticed that my two best friends won the most prestigious awards while I won a bronze medal on a languge exam. About 10 other people received the same award as me, and I don’t even enjoy my Spanish class, nor is it one of my best classes in terms of grades. I feel really hurt and jealous still, especially because my friends brought up their excitement today in front of me. I really want to be happy for them, but at the same time I truly feel like I deserved an award as well. I improved a lot, I have higher averages than them this year, and I frequently tutor those two friends in math and history. I guess this failure is just difficult to accept for me and I wish I could get over it but I can’t. Do you have any advice for how to accept loss, be happy for others and move on?
I have to say this is really hard. One of my main things I’ve learned (I got my first B ever this year and was also denied my last shot at a prestigious summer program) is that theres more beyond high school. Yes, this one night may not be yours to shine. And its okay to be jealous. But think about it, are you really gonna feel fufilled even if you got those awards? For 5 seconds on stage? No. Youre gonna go off to college and do great things. You and your friends are all working really hard. You all deserve it. But, I’ll say it taught me more when I lost than when I won. Maybe you could put time into volunteering? Theatre? A blog? Something outside of school that is your identity. Remember, YOUR time will come, and it’ll be amazing when it does.
There are always going to be moments in high school when every part of your life does not line up with how you wanted it to go. You are an extremely accomplished student and no matter what this one award ceremony may seem to say does not take away from the success you will find beyond high school and in life if you continue to work hard and enjoy what you do. Being happy for your friends may seem hard but in the end, its much easier to be happy than to spend all of your energy being jealous or upset. Do not think about this moment as a loss, think about it as a chance for you to celebrate a different success and maybe even as motivation to continue to work hard.
You are over-valuing the awards and under-valuing your friendship. You apparently understand why you did not get the award despite feeling you should have. But, you did get an award. It is apparently not as prestigious as the one you had your eye on. So, it is more healthy to do a downward comparison. I bet there are loads of people who got no awards at all and many who think they deserved one. In comparison, you were fortunate.
If you helped the people get those awards, try seeing their victories as your victories, too.
Thank you so much. The ceremony was today and I found myself in tears because of some of the discouraging stuff my parents said to me about my character and why I didn’t get an award because I don’t work hard enough. But reading everything you all said is making me feel a lot better, so thank you again.