I try really hard in school, I really do. I devote all my time and effort to doing well. However, I receive bad grades (for my standards anyways). I always set my standards to something unachievable, always trying to "shoot for the moon", but a guy feels like after trying and failing so many times. I'm really upset about how bad I'm doing... I hate the competitive piece of I've turned into, driven by the spirit of American capitalism. What can I do to feel better?

Try a new approach. If you're trying and still not doing well, you need to go back and look at how you've been doing things and figure out why its not working. Maybe you need a new way of taking notes. Maybe the papers you wrote were in fact well written, but you hadn't followed the specific instructions and it wasn't what the teacher wanted. Or for projects, I remember the over achievers would come up with these lengthy power point projects. It was clear they had put a lot of time into finding the info for them. But it was so over done, and so much info, and so far from the 5 minute presentation the teacher had wanted that they still wouldn't do well (I remember one even out the teacher to sleep actually haha) and don't forget, it's not necessary to devote all of your time to school. It's important to have some time to relax.

Maybe you should re-evaluate your objectives. What I mean by that is, "is your objective to make good grades or is your objective to be perfect or is your objective to learn?" There is a difference in all 3 of these. Grades are not always indicative of what you've learned. Think about why you're in school, establish realistic, achieveable objectives and focus on these. And above all, enjoy yourself. Take some courses that you are passionate about instead of courses that you are required to take. Refocus! Learn! Enjoy!