One of the greatest things in life is how wrong we can be sometimes.
I would’ve bet my life that I’d be more successful than most of my 300 high school classmates. All throughout high school I excelled in the classroom and was heavily involved in sports, extracurriculars and my community. This narrowly and wrongly led me to assume that I was more driven to succeed than my old classmates were since most of them didn’t have the grade point average I did or weren’t as engaged in school as I was.
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Now two years out of high school, I am extremely grateful that I was so wrong about myself being “more successful.” (And grateful that I didn’t actually bet my life on me being more successful because lol I’d be dead right now if I did bet my life on that.)
One fantastic aspect of the real world is the freedom we have to pursue success. There’s not a single, systematic test we have to pass that defines us. There isn’t one single means to achievement anymore. Success can be found wherever you want to find it as long as you’re willing to work hard enough to achieve it. I mean, of course, we still have finals and exams to pass. But the classroom isn’t what distinguishes success.
I’m witnessing my old high school classmates do absolutely incredible things outside the classroom that I know I couldn’t do or see myself doing. My old peers are doing remarkable things such as conducting independent research in the Amazon Rainforest, directing and producing their own original films, starting up their own thriving businesses, becoming licensed pilots and so much more. It’s astounding and inspiring to realize that these people whom others and myself overlooked are now doing profound things that I simply could not do. The walls of a classroom can’t define or do justice to the creativity and passions that some of us have.
Disclaimer: This is not at all to say that excelling in the classroom and acing your engineering classes is a bad thing by any means. If you really are a mathematic or scientific genius and desire to be a surgeon or engineer, shout out to you for being two billion times smarter than ya boy. You and your intellectual talents make the world even more spectacular and diverse.
Moreover, until getting about halfway through my freshmen year of college, I never even conceptually considered the freedom that we can make our professional lives just about anything we want. But seeing my old classmates now making their passions their reality has opened my eyes to the beautiful fact that I was entirely wrong about them. Everyone’s distinctive, individual differences make our world so much brighter. The variety in personal enthusiasms and imaginativeness which each individual possesses is what makes our world so magnificent.
However, sometimes it’s difficult not to feel like a drop in the bucket when each of us is only one of seven billion humans on the planet. But there’s no one else in the world that has the same combination of passions, talents, tastes, experiences and perspectives that you do. For that reason, we ought to appreciate the differences in one another instead of judging one another for those differences.
One of the greatest pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from former U.S. Navy Seal and author of The Heart and The Fist, Eric Greitens. “Even if you dislike someone or consider them irrelevant, don’t automatically discredit every single thing they say. Ordinary people do and say extraordinary things every day. Don’t allow your arrogance to result in you missing out on a valuable lesson you could learn from someone else.”
Finally, I apologize to those high school classmates of mine for underestimating you. You and your potential isn’t defined by a grade point average, paycheck, or any other type of subjective judgement. Your potential is defined by you. Every human is a unique, beautiful and extravagant compilation of passions and stories. No one else can adequately classify you. You define yourself and your success. One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned, I owe to you: to appreciate people for their differences. Like an artist can’t create a masterpiece with just one color, our world isn’t nearly as magnificent if we were all the same. Many different colors make for something wonderful.
Every single person is better than you at something, so always give them the benefit of the doubt and appreciate what makes them who they are before judging them or their capabilities.
