I can’t believe I’m already a junior and I’ll be going off to college in less than two years.
For some strange reason, when you’re little, you can’t wait to grow up. You can’t wait to turn eight, turn nine turn double-digits, and plunge into the murky, mysterious world of adolescence and adulthood. You can’t wait to make more decisions by yourself and gradually become independent from your parents.
But although I’m only seventeen, I’m starting to realize how much it sucks growing up. You have to finish tedious homework that sucks up your spare time. You have to deal with high expectations from yourself, your parents, and your friends.
And as my junior year closes… the monster called “getting into college” smacks me right in the face.
I watched a Zoom meeting that our school district hosted for parents and students regarding the elements that made a great college application essay.
The most glaringly obvious advice that I’ve gotten out of this video is…
Be authentic.
And damn. It’s easy to say but extremely hard to do.
Even if you’re not applying to college, think about what that means.
To an extent, I’m thankful that college essays exist. Students are given fundamental questions, and the best answers lie in basic, simplistic answers rather than convoluted, disingenuous ones. I’m often the type of person who can give you an in-depth explanation of the structure of a calculus problem, but can’t even answer the simplest questions that reveal a lot about your identity.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve had to look within. Nor will it be the last.
One of the questions that I get asked from my good friends and adult peers is, “What do you do for fun?”
I usually answer by saying something along the lines of “chess”, or “reading”, if I want to give a more intellectual stance.
But if I think about it… do I do anything… for fun?
I’m not sure if I know what fun means anymore. Sure, I play card games with my friends during lunch, but even then I’m still thinking about an optimal strategy to win.
When I have free time, I’m either studying, reading, or in the pool. I don’t know if anyone would consider these to be “free time”.
Which brings up another distinct but related question: “What are you genuinely passionate about?” In other words, what task are you so into that it keeps you up at night?
I was not born with math talents. I am not naturally athletic. I built myself up from the dust. Today, I still question my motives. I want to get good at swimming and math, but is that it? Am I passionate about these things?
I would have to provide a neutral answer to that. I don’t enjoy it, but I do because I already did a ton of it. I’m not sure if I’m purely passionate about math, but I’ve seen some pretty cool problems along the way. Doing is better than not doing.
The last time I was purely driven by curiosity was when I was about eight or nine, building miniature buildings out of Lego bricks and reading science books that I thought were cool. I was genuinely interested. They were cool, math worksheets were not, and getting fit meant almost nothing to me.
It’s… heartbreaking. Maybe we all go through this at some point, but after I left childhood I started getting less curious and more ambition-driven. COVID worsened that transition, and from that rabbit hole, I emerged as a solely self-reliant, hard-working kid. I’m a bulldozer now. If you don’t see me during lunch, I’m most likely paying attention in a class or utilizing every inch effectively to get something done. Because that’s what I need right now, right? Something has to be accomplished. I keep failing, I work harder than ever before, and something will come out of it.
My inner self is still within me. I remember when I was eleven or twelve, on the edge of abandoning my Legos (mind you, I was a late bloomer), in my teenage years, I would construct hundreds of story Lego towers, defeat hundreds of evil bosses with my fortress, and ultimately have the superheroes rule over the villains. Even before that, I thought space was amazing. And I knew, for certain, that science was real.
Sometimes, there just might be giants in our lives. Only after confronting our true, innocent selves, often from childhood, are we able to reminisce what true curiosity looks like.
Coming back, I see this energetic little kid: fearless, unstoppable, naive. He sees me, and I see him. He waves.
It’s an invitation. Ambition is important. I love the way ambition drives one to shatter that glass wall and live up to their wildest dreams. But we must not forget that inner childish curiosity and authenticity that differentiates us humans from the smartest AI in the world.
I wave back.