Archive for October, 2009

I’m sitting in a high school classroom proctoring a standardized aptitude exam. As I watch 20 students hunch over their tests, scared shitless by its questions, I think about the fact that they all want to do their best. Whether it be to impress their parents with a score that will gain them access to the finest universities or whether it’s to prove to themselves and others how intelligent they are, they’re all putting everything they’ve got, no matter how much that is, into this test.

In the last two years of high school and then the last two of college, most of us are driven. We have to be. We are either making up for slacking through the previous two years or trying to finish strong. But what happens to that determination, to that drive, when we finish school? Time brings the truth to light. It reveals our motivation, what’s been pushing us forward and whether or not that catalyst ceases to exist.

At some point in our development, we are forced by life to figure out who we’ve been living for, who we’ve been working hard to impress—the reason behind our grind. When there are no longer numerical scores to grade our success by, we have to determine our own scales by which to measure it.

After 16 years of academia the most important lesson I came away with is to set my own standards. Essentially, to live for me. To study something because I want to learn about it…to strive for goals that are my own priority…to trust my own decision-making when it comes to what’s best for me. Because life’s a test, and when my time is up and I have to put my pencil down, I want to able to say that I passed with flying colors.