Teenagers of Reddit, what is one thing you'd like to ask the adults of Reddit?

I heard a story once about a spinal surgeon who was operating on the base of someone's spine. It's a very delicate area. After 6 hours of surgery his knife slipped and he cut open the sack of nerves at the base by mistake. This caused the nerves to move out of the protective sack and lay flat out in front of him - intact, but not contained. He gave himself 10 seconds to panic. 10 seconds of terror, thoughts of consequences for the patient, for himself, for their respective families. Then a deep breath and get to work to fix it. 10 hours later he was successful, and extremely tired.

They point is, learn to accept failure. You're going to do it. It's going to happen, and possibly in some very major ways. Accept this massive screw up and allow yourself a finite amount of time to be terrified. It's normal and healthy. But when the time is up - that's it. Fear or not, you need to get moving. Fix it, abandon it, progress to something else, but you have to do something.

I failed as a college student. I failed trying to be an artist. I failed trying to be a manager. I failed trying to be a firefighter.

But collectively the expertise that these failures and experiences provided for me allowed me to become a better student, a better husband, and a better person (I think). I didn't give up (and never will) and neither should you. Ever.

I start medical school in July. I found what I was truly passionate about later in life than others, but it's the thickening of skin towards failure that helped the most. It's impossible to know what today's tragedy will provide for you I the future. It really is a butterfly effect.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent