When I wrote my last article in the senior section almost two years ago, I thought I had closed the door on my time at the Observer. Yet somehow, I’ve found myself back (what a super senior). First, I want to thank Ms. Zitnik and the entire Observer staff for inviting me back as a guest columnist this month. It feels strange, but meaningful, to be writing again for the paper where I spent so much of my time in high school.
Even though it’s only been almost two years since I was waking up at 7 a.m. for first period, it feels like a lifetime ago. College has a funny way of reshaping your perspective. Coming in, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people who were class presidents, national award winners, or the only students from their country admitted. I didn’t expect the imposter syndrome to hit as hard as it did after my first semester. For the first time, I felt lost and behind, not because I wasn’t capable, but because I was constantly comparing myself to everyone else.
It’s hard to say negative things about a place you choose to spend four years of your life. If you asked me right after I moved out of my dorm last year how everything went, I could list a dozen things I wished I had done differently. But despite all of that, I knew I wouldn’t transfer. College, like life, is more than the classes you take. It’s the friends you make unexpectedly, the organizations you join on a whim, and the moments that quietly teach you who you are.
This past summer, I realized something else that I didn’t expect: people come and go. Friends you thought you’d talk to every day slowly drift away, not because anything went wrong, but because life pulls you in different directions. At first, that was hard to accept. But over time, I learned that it’s okay. Some people are meant to stay forever, and others are meant to be part of just one chapter, both matter.
Around the same time, I was asked a question during an interview for a club that I haven’t been able to shake: How do you define success? I answered quickly, saying that success is doing what makes you happy. I still believe that, but the more time I’ve had to sit with the question, the more complicated it’s become. At what point do you actually get to call yourself successful? I see friends who accepted jobs in banking, jobs that come with prestige and financial security, and by most measures, they’ve “made it.” But I also see people who chose paths that don’t pay nearly as much, who wake up excited about the work they do, and I’d call them successful too. Even the security guard outside my dorm, who works late into the night before going home to her family, greets everyone with the same warmth every day. If you asked her, I think she’d say she’s successful — and I think that definition deserves just as much respect. Success, I’ve learned, isn’t one destination or salary number. It’s personal, evolving, and often quieter than we expect.a
This is for anyone currently in high school, especially seniors applying to college or waiting on decisions. You can’t have everything you want, and you can’t avoid bad news. There will be sacrifices, disappointments, and moments that feel unfair. I learned that the hard way, whether it was relationships ending or realizing that some doors don’t close as neatly as you hope they will. Coming from the guy who got broken up with the day before graduation and had to deal with a tennis coach’s large ego, not everything is perfect, and that’s okay.
High school often makes it feel like getting into a “good college” is the finish line. But it’s not, it’s barely the starting block. Life gets more complicated, not less. I take fewer classes now than I did in high school, yet I feel more stressed. The challenges don’t disappear; they multiply.
What matters isn’t how often things go wrong, but how you respond when they do. I’ve adopted two simple rules: first, it could always be worse. Second, no matter how screwed (I’d say a different word I can’t write here) you feel, it’s always workable. You don’t need everything figured out, you just need to keep moving forward.
So if you’re nervous about what comes next, that’s normal. There is more to life after Churchill. It won’t be perfect, but it will be yours, and that’s enough.
