On staying alive

There'll be some ecstatic teenagers glowing over their A-level results today. And there'll be others feeling desolate.

Horrifyingly, there'll be a very few who believe they've failed utterly and will - just typing the words makes me shaky - decide it's not worth going on with what, at this moment, they can't see are their unbelievably precious and full-of-potential young lives.

I didn't get the grades I thought I would. I also didn't get the place at drama school I tried so hard for, nor, three years later, the degree result I'd thought was a foregone conclusion. A series of small, and not so small, devastations.

This is just a little post to say to anyone whose  world has caved in and who thinks there is no way past the feelings of humiliation and inadequacy - you can have a fantastic future. You don't have to believe it, you just have to stay alive to give that future a chance.

This quote was pinned above my desk for many years:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'press on' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge

It's spot on. Resilience is all.