Unnecessary Thoughts of a High School Student

My Stress or Lack Thereof

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If it's not going to matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes being upset by it.

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It has been a total of two days since spring break ended, and while I considered typing up some melancholic imagery about how I lament over its inexorable termination, or how I prayed devoutly during Sunday mass for the week-long vacation to extend its stay, memories of my utter lack of activity materialized before me, and I came to a conclusion that I shouldn't waste my second chapter transfiguring false emotions into online text.

Instead, I was inspired by the encouraging words of my English teacher and my History teacher, both of whom who have made an effort to reassure my class of about thirty overachievers in a relatively lengthy speech that our AP results do not determine our future, and our college does not determine our success.

Personally, I was not significantly impacted by these speeches my teachers imposed on us. They were facts I knew from the beginning simply from the nature of my upbringing.

My parents had my brother at nineteen and my dad worked a series of jobs to help raise him properly, my mother a waitress. They lived collectively with the rest of my father's family in the heart of a no-name town in Los Angeles, our own little branch occupying the small house in the backyard. My dad was unable to attend college until later, but when he did, he did not spend money on textbooks, he absorbed the material like a sponge, and when he graduated he immediately got a job at a tech company, because jobs do not scrutinize what college you went to, they look at whether you received a diploma and how much experience you've obtained.

When I asked my father if he considered himself successful, he said yes; he had three children, a nice wife, and a job he loved doing. He did not attend a big name university, he is not a top-name scholar, but he is experiencing his own version of successful.

Because what really defines survival is your own skill level—and money, but usually, skill level—and success is defined by us, by me.

So, no, I don't have major stress about certain subjects or my AP's, because I know that as long as I'm great at whatever career I major in, then where I go is irrelevant as long as I prove myself and become a person who is able to hold my head high in society. I trust myself too much to lose faith when it matters.

However, I know not everybody can be so lackadaisical about their own academic mindset.

There is no doubt in my mind that to a vast majority of the individuals residing around me, these anecdotes from my teachers traveled from one ear and passed through the other. Our school, as I'm sure most schools do, perpetuate the overwhelming theme that we must be accepted into a high-caliber university. That if we attend a community college, that is a critical failure and that for the remainder of our existence we will be subjected to barely supporting ourselves on a second-rate occupation.

That is a fallacy.

And through a story about an old student he had, my History teacher addressed this particular regard. I don't recall his name, so I'll designate him as Brandon, but Brandon was a terrific high schooler. He was a junior varsity water polo player; he took the AP classes that his counselers recommended and studied like his teachers advised. As he reached the end of his teenage career, he applied to several colleges including UCLA, USC, and UC Berkeley.

He was rejected by every school except Irvine, a college he deemed as his fallback. In the end, he ultimately chose to enter Glendale Community College. A place he never even brushed the notion of ending up at.

He was pissed, furious, irate. How could this happen? How could this be? He went through all this work, all these APs and sports, and he's going to GCC? Bullshit. That's bullshit. And in everyone else's eyes, through his own eyes, that's an embarrassment.

My teacher stumbled upon Brandon later in life—I don't know when or where, I was busy playing Everwing on the Facebook messenger app during his narrative—and the topic of his schooling emerged inevitably. As they caught up, Brandon retold how he applied for the scholarly program at GCC where you get priority registration and a ninety to one hundred percent chance of transfer.

He spent one year at GCC before being accepted into Calstate.

From Calstate, I believe he attended UC Berkeley.

By the time he met my History teacher again, he was on the path to Georgetown for law school.

It all worked out in his favor.

As I heard about Brandon's fate, one quote from The Alchemist grasped my mind: when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

In the words of my teacher: when you push yourself to achieve that standard, even if you don't hit the top of the mountain, you're going to land on a ledge. And from there, you are able to climb.

Of course, that implies that you try to climb that mountain. That your goal is, in fact, the top. I am not here to reassure that it's acceptable that you take less AP's than you can probably handle or that it's alright for you to slack as colleges are overrated. People who refuse to realize their potential are a subject that baffles me, and passionless, apathetic attitudes towards trying educators are, to me, windows to future low-lives. There is no excuse for being a rip off replica of yourself.

What I am trying to communicate is only an echo of what my teacher conveyed: work hard, challenge yourself, and strive to be the best version of yourself you could be, but if after all that work you don't find yourself in the valued position you expected, the immediate standard you aimed for, then understand that it's not the end of your path, it's only a step. 

As a struggling sophomore to perhaps another: chill. It's not that deep.