I’ve always been a big fan of baseball. The idea of three strikes and you’re out and going out there everyday and having control over if you win or lose fascinated me. Baseball tells you there can only be one winner and if you lose one game out of the 162 games a season, no one will remember it in September.
However, high school and life itself has come to create this idea in our head that if we aren’t at the top, then we aren’t anything.
High school teaches us that good is no longer good enough, that one grade defines us and that it’s always a competition.
Now I know school always taught you to think of others first, but in the real world, nobody will be looking out for you as they throw you under the bus to advance themselves higher on the social totem pole. It’s time to realize that if you want something done, then go do it yourself. Just like in baseball, if you want to hit a home run, you are the only one who can do it.
The person I thought I was freshman year isn’t the same as the person I am now. I used to be a cheerleader and I thought grades were everything. Now I know that high school was a place where I found out what my likes and dislikes were and not a competition for who could get the best grades and be the top of everything.
As long as you embrace your likes and do things because you want to and not to get an award, that’s all that matters. Take charge of your future and make it what you want it to be.
If you learn anything over the course of high school it’s that education should be for the exhilaration of learning, rather than for material advantage. I also hope that you learn enough to recognize how little you know…how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning. The real world is out there. And what matters is where you go from here. Do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself and grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)
Enjoy high school, but don’t let it define you. There’s so much more out there, and high school is just a mere stepping stone on the path to figuring out who you are meant to be.