still remember sitting lost in a long tunnel of thought, oblivious to my surroundings and the tempting calls of nature’s love to engulf me in a peaceful quiet time of enjoyment. I was determined; I had to accomplish something. I had to prove to them that I was capable of at least a small unit of success that excluded applying jam on toast and munching it for breakfast. The desktop of my computer responded with nothing except the picture of my family and me at the amusement park. I recalled that day; it was not more than two summers ago in the crowded roller coasters of Kings Dominion. That was before I had to face the onslaught of a huge burden of education in my sophomore and junior years. I had always been a bona fide student with all perfect grades and a 4.0 gpa. Seemingly, that wasn’t enough to make myself stand unique, a possession of an element that made colleges want to pick me rather than someone else. My scores for exams that colleges require were pretty normal, they weren’t perfect, but they stood high. And there I had noticed was the root of the problem: my scores weren’t cream; they were large amounts of milk and water, but not ultimate perfection.
As a background, I had arrived to the United States around three years ago. The education system compared to my mother country was rather different, but nothing I had much trouble getting used to. I had earlier decided that I preferred to go to college here, than somewhere else. Following the examples of my classmates, I decided to join clubs and do sports despite my non-sportive body. I gradually learnt that this contributed to a so called resume. These factors seemingly made me satisfied, but not my parents. They wanted me to concentrate on my studies, on the required exams; they said that I didn’t need extra activities. Every day, I endured examples of some children of my dad’s friends who achieved single or double scholarships based on their grades and scores. Most people would probably take this in the usual way: that my parents were pushy or that they were just all about grades. No. In fact, they just wanted me to do my very best. Despite their seldom reoccurring feelings, I would see them cheering on the bleachers at my track meets, or clapping whenever I received a certificate. The problem was all about my way of thinking and my mind of accepting what I heard. This type of competitive attitude was good, but created the most dangerous situations in its extremes.
Well that was then. There was so much I learnt quickly from that experience. Most of that can’t be taught and a lot of that could be taken as bad advice in its extremes. Today, I stand happy; I am accomplished and no one is unhappy. Most importantly, I don’t venture into any thoughts about how I could have been more successful; it is a futile. After all this, I don’t mind telling you the key to the lock: it’s merely the state of mind that avoids wasting your high school years in a rigorous tension. Just take a moment to glance back at that album of pictures in the amusement park. Stare at it and accept that there existed that carefree you, and there is and doesn’t have to be any difference between that you and this you today. It is purely the same individual with some challenges bestowed upon it to make its life more challenging and memorable. Competition is an important natural tendency, but it should never obstruct you from pursuing your passions. It shan’t affect your education if you spend an hour of two everyday to take a tennis class because it is the sport you adore. Don’t pause to join a band with your saxophone every now and then, if music is in of your hobby. And lastly, don’t quit writing prose or poetry for a magazine of for yourself if writing is a passion. The result is a loss of that talent, which you clearly notice unfortunately, occurred in my case.