I am currently writing this on a Saturday night, waiting to edit the next brief covering USC football’s next disappointment. I have two papers due in one day, and I’ve started neither of them. My next week of classes is chock full of presentations I haven’t prepared for, but I won’t be getting around to those until I plan out my two finals that were just assigned earlier this week. 

Unfortunately, all of this has to get done today, because I have a shift at the Daily Trojan tomorrow morning that’ll stretch into the afternoon. I’d work on all of this Sunday night, but I planned two meetings at that time, not realizing that those meetings are entirely overlapping.

I’ll be fine.

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Throughout my entire life, I have held myself to one principle: “You are capable of more than you know.” You can always do more than you think you can, so shoot for the stars, and make sure you shoot hard enough to break the moon in half in case it gets in your way.

Alas, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck-in-the-moon recently. I got robbed in late September, slept through a midterm in early October and have been running on about three and a half hours of sleep daily. I’ve repeatedly considered dropping each and every one of my classes at some point this semester, only to decide to push through. And I have. Like I said, I’ll be fine.

And I’ve been saying that. For the past two months and the past 19 years before that. I’ll be fine. Those were actually my first three words. True story. (Note: As Daily Trojan’s chief copy editor, I feel obligated to tell you that there is actually no evidence to corroborate that story.)

At the same time, it gets significantly harder to say “I’ll be fine” when life seems to be giving you an endless supply of ass-kickings. When you are stuck halfway through the moon, it gets easy to think that you should’ve started off by shooting for something more achievable, like the International Space Station.

I expect at this point you’ll be expecting me to confirm all of your biases by admitting that I am actually not fine. I bet you’re just itching for me to tell you, “I should cut back on what I’m doing and prioritize my own mental health. I’d rather put the entirety of my time and energy into projects that I can turn into something great.” No.

I lived my entire life striving for perfection. If I couldn’t do something perfectly, I wouldn’t do it at all. The lowest grade I allowed myself to receive was an A, and that was only because an A+ wasn’t offered at my high school.

And where did perfection get me? Into college? Barely. Out of the nine schools that I applied to, I got accepted into two. After taking 17 years to put together the most impeccable nine applications that I could, seven schools told me to shove it. Perfection only gets you so far.

So if you want me to tell you that it would be in my best interests to stop failing so hard, you are sorely mistaken. I will fail just as much as I like, thank you very much. More, even.

The fact is that, these days, I would much rather try 100 times and fail most of the time than try 10 times and fail none. 

And yes, maybe it does royally suck to have to dig yourself out of the moon when you miscalculate just how thick it actually is. But I’m gonna keep digging.

Maybe I’m not capable of more than I know. Maybe I am. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

“Editors’ Epilogue” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment and their personal experiences of living in what seems to be an irrepressible dumpster fire of a world. Reo is a sophomore studying journalism and a chief copy editor at the Daily Trojan.