When it’s not your fault

In my eight or so years enrolled in higher education—this is after undergraduate, mind you—a lot of unexpected things have happened to me, and not all of it has been my fault. I’ve noticed that much of higher education is in the unpredictable sphere where anything can sort of happen. I’ve observed this subjectivity in evaluation after the coursework phase of formal education concludes, so anything can sort of go when it comes to, say, promotion. It’s not necessarily a strictly “fair” thing, and if you’re thinking about staying in higher education as an educator, there needs to be this element of serendipity for it all to happen. 

But what if you’re like me and end up as one of the unlucky ones? Well, there’s this common saying that you only learn from failure (i.e., rather than success). It’s an interesting perspective because I think, on some level, the unluckier path could be the more educational of the two in the long run. I don’t know, and only time will tell on this one. Yet, I’ve felt that despite my ambition and willingness to go above and beyond in academia, there’s only so much you can do when, for some reason, you reach a ceiling in advancement associated with your environment, your project, your peers, etc., etc. It’s all sort of random at the highest levels of higher education and not necessarily your fault at the end of the day if things turn out disastrously wrong. Success in higher education can be a little bit of a crapshoot.