“College Pressures” a Book by William Zinsser Essay

Introduction: Zinsser and His Measure of Triumph

In the present-day world, the reputation of every single Epson is measured by his/her success, and that is something to think about. While the idea of obtaining a valuable experience even at the cost of failure is somewhat admitted as a good one, the focus of the society is still on the achievements rather than on life’s lessons and what they have taught one. In his paper, Zinsser explains that the constant focus on the positive result forces the American youth into an extremely exhausting lifestyle: “I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” (Zinsser). Moreover, according to the author, with a well though-out plan of victories and the crowning achievement, in the end, the life of the American youth becomes rather dull: “They want a map — right now — that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave” (Zinsser).

Too Much of a Good Thing: Zinsser Has a Point

It must be admitted that at certain point, Zinsser pins down the basic negative aspect of the whole idea of the American Dream; indeed, the key problem of the present-day youth is that they are in a rush for their highest peak, with no regard for the current achievements and not being able to evaluate the positive and the negative aspects of a certain experience. As Zinsser explains, “Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media — the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and the glorified in our praise of possessions” (Zinsser). Obviously, there is a grain of truth in Zinsser’s train of thoughts – the focus on success presupposes that the young people will not be able to analyze the results of their work, deriving both the negative and the positive information – they will take a failure as an utter defeat, and the success as the complete victory, without analyzing the benefits and the drawbacks of their current state of affairs. Thus, one must admit that Zinsser’s argument seems rather legitimate.

Savoring the Victory: My Experience of Success

Despite the arguments offered above in support of Zinsser’s ideas, it is necessary to mention that experiencing a moment of success is much harder in terms of its analysis; once tasting the victory, one is bound to aim at reliving the moment of triumph again and again without the concern for the significance of experience derived from a negative result. Moreover, fear of negative results can arise. For example, my personal experience of success could have led to my following the blazed trail of the American Dream and fearing any possible negative results. Once, writing an assignment from school, I came up with the idea that led beyond the topic area and pushed me into philosophical reflections. After putting much effort into this task, I was really delighted to see that I received an excellent mark for it, and at the same time it hurt me to realize that the next paper might not match the excellence of this one, which made me spend days polishing the next paper. The given consequence would have seemed rather good if I had analyzed what exactly brought me an excellent mark. Instead, I was just keeping my fingers crossed to get an excellent mark next time, which, of course, led to nothing – or, in my case, to another B.

The Definition of Successful Life: In Search for the Grail

When it comes to defining the essence of success, the concept of eternal triumph does seem somewhat unrealistic. Personally, I believe that having bad days is not that tragic and that negative experience is essential for the shaping of one’s personality; however, this is what I believe as long as my own life is successful enough. To be honest, I have to admit that for me, utter success means that none of my actions leads to any trouble of major scale and that I can handle any difficulties that may possibly arise.

Thus, my definition of success is that I do not have any record of the actions that I feel ashamed for and that my actions lead me gradually to the goal, which I have in mind. Even with a couple of events that I can possibly have some regrets for, I can feel quite satisfied as long as I know that I can plan something meaningful and put my ideas to practice efficiently.

My Ideas Related to Zinsser’s and Levine’s Experiences

The truth is that both Zinsser and Levine are right in their idea of success and people’s evaluation of achievements, and both of them are actually trying to convey the same idea, yet in a different manner. While Zinsser explains the increase of the modern life pace as a result of running to achieve something grand and be bin time for the moment of success, Levine points out that each culture has its specific pace of life, and there is hardly anything one can do about it. According to Levine, “Seemingly simple words like ‘now,’ snapped out by an impatient New Yorker, and ‘later,’ said by a relaxed Californian, suggest a world of difference” (Levine).

Therefore, while Zinsser does leave people some chance for redemption and attempts to pace out their lives in a more realistic and reasonable way, Levine makes it obvious that it is the national spirit that sets the pace. Hence, according to Levine, to reset one’s own “success clock”, one has to change the national perception of time, which is a million times harder. Although it seems to me that Levine makes more sense talking about the national pace of life as something that can be changed only nationwide, I would rather bring it to an even greater level – the level of epoch. It is the era that predetermines the pace of life, and the difference between various nations is only due to the cultural specifics.

Conclusion: Failure as Another Step Towards Success

Hence, it is clear that true success is impossible without any single experience of failure; only knowing how deep one can fall, one will be able to fly really high. Like it is truly impossible to cognize the good without actually knowing the good from the bad, one will not be able to achieve success or, for that matters, know that (s)he has achieved success without learning previously what actually failure is.

However, the mentality of success, which makes the youth of the USA push themselves to the breaking point with their studying and careers, is quite understood as well. Admitting the very possibility of failure, one can become rather vulnerable to a variety of factors and become far more careful in his/her decisions than it is desirable. Hence, where the person who knows nothing about failure goes fearless, the cautious ones fear to tread, thus, losing a number of chances to succeed. Thus, it must be admitted that there must be a golden mean between reckless chase for success and excessive caution.

Works Cited

Levine, Robert. “Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture”. Psychology Today (1985): 28-35. Web.

Zinsser, William. n.d. College Pressures. Web.