The Fear of Failure

By Diego Rivera

Edward Keen ’20, along with thousands of other dreaming high school teens, will never take the risk of pursuing their true passion because of one reason: the fear of failure.

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Ever since he was a kid, Keen has been extremely passionate about reading and writing. In the future, he would like to write articles for the West Side Story, his school´s newspaper. According to Amari Nasafi Keen,¨was a stalwart member of the NorthWest Passage. As [he recalls], he was particularly adept at writing reviews of books and films.” Being a reporter for a high school newspaper might naturally lead one to pursue a career in the field of writing, journalism or English, but that’s not the case. Keen said he would love to have a career in the field of journalism or writing but “would probably make it a side job instead.¨

Keen said his main reasoning for pursuing writing as a hobby more than a career is that he is, “afraid no one will read what [he will] write,”

Keen believes that it is difficult to tell whether what you write is going to be a big hit or if it´ll flop completely. Because of this, Keen says he’s considering pursuing a profession in the medical field because the job security level is much higher. He also happens to be very talented in the STEM field, being in Mathcounts for two years in junior high and now considering joining the math team at West High as well.

He believes that a profession in the STEM field would be a lot more promising than a career as a writer, and having both parents in the STEM field–his dad is a scientist at the University of Iowa and his mom is a computer engineer for Pearson–motivates him to pursue a similar career.

Keen says the future beyond high school is uncertain, since it’s still a ways away. For now, Keen will continue writing, whether it be personal writing on the internet or in a journal, writing cover stories as a head news writer, as an author of his yet-to-be-thought-of best-selling book, or simply an essay for his 10th grade English course. One way or another the passion for writing inside Keen will never cease to exist.