js Form Submit Button Not Working

Question

The code is below, not sure what I am missing or what I may need to edit. I am newer to JavaScript. Please help! I have tried to add "onClick" as well as the final submit, the following code (as it's labeled in the bigger code) is "contact submit". I bought this website for my graphic design portfolio - I can read coding to a degree, but this one is throwing me through a loop.

$("#submit_btn").click(function(){      
    var user_name=$('input[name=name]').val();
    var user_email=$('input[name=email]').val();
    var user_message=$('textarea[name=message]').val();
    var proceed=true;
        if(user_name==""){
            $('input[name=name]').css('border','2px solid #F54A4B');
            proceed=false
        }
        if(user_email==""){
            $('input[name=email]').css('border','2px solid #F54A4B');
            proceed=false
        }
        if(user_message==""){
            $('textarea[name=message]').css('border','2px solid #F54A4B');
            proceed=false
        }
        if(proceed){
            post_data={'userName':user_name,'userEmail':user_email,'userMessage':user_message};
            $.post('php/contact_me.php',
            post_data,
            function(data){
                $("#result").hide().html('<div class="success">'+data+'</div>').fadeIn(700);
                $('#contact_form input').val('');
                $('#contact_form textarea').val('')}).fail(
                function(err){
                    $("#result").hide().html('<div class="error">'+err.statusText+'</div>').fadeIn(1500)
            });
        }
});

$("#contact_form input, #contact_form textarea").keyup(function(){      
        $("#contact_form input, #contact_form textarea").css('border','2px solid #fff');
        $("#result").fadeOut(700)           
}); 

Answer 1

To submit a form you have to use .submit() function.
Use $("#submit_btn").submit() to submit the form.
Please go through https://api.jquery.com/submit/ once.