I am no fan of the Clintons and although I did vote for her, I do not know if my conscience really wanted her to win. However, for the sake of my health insurance, I gave her my vote. As I watched Hillary Clinton deliver a speech of frustration, I genuinely began to feel bad for her. It was not because she was solely expressing the defeat that the country felt, but the defeat her personal career felt. I re-watched the video on mute and without hearing any words I was brought to tears. It was more than the politics, more than her losing, and more than Donald Trump winning. I could see the letdown begin to settle into her wrinkles as she built a wall trying to hide her feelings of personal failure. For me, that is scary. As a college student who was taught to dream big and, with hard work and determination, the sky's the limit if you want it bad enough. Watching Hillary Clinton lose meant that a little girl might not know what it feels like to have your purpose fulfilled. Her loss sent a distinctive message that all dreams do not come true, even if you worked for it tirelessly, and that is discouraging.
From an early age, I have trained myself to believe that I am the exception to every rule and that glass ceilings never applied to me. As I am struggling this semester with just getting through, the more reality is beginning to set in. The one standard that I always abide by was to never settle. Complacency feels a lot like a maze I cannot get out of and at every wrong turn “settling” is what awaits me. All of my confidence derived from this ideology that I can have it all, as long as I am willing to work hard for what I want. This semester has been an uphill battle, each day clasping onto the hope that whatever I wish to be, I can be.
“Do well in school! So you can get scholarships for college!” I did that and I still find myself in financial debt. “Study abroad and do everything to make sure you stand out.” I applied to study abroad for an entire semester on a boat visiting 13 countries to find out my school scholarships are non-transferable. “Do well in college so you can get into grad school.” I achieved a 4.0 GPA. “Oh? But you're 4.0 isn't really a 4.0 when we look at what school you attended.”
I could work my ass off, be the most qualified for a position and still not get the job I have been preparing my entire career for. And then the world says I'm simply supposed to accept that it was not in the cards for me. There is no up from here for Hillary Clinton. And that is the most depressing part. If she would have won, I know she would have died knowing she set out to achieve the unimaginable. And through all the adversity she would have been satisfied to know she came out on top. Her lost demonstrated that setting out to hold the highest position her career path had to offer, and failing twice, that there is nothing left for her but retirement. As a young person who is still in school, I begin to question why bother? If the end results is not where I want to be. Even if I am further than where I started, my fulfillment comes from accomplishments and not progress.
She has been positioning herself to become president of the United States since the campaign trail of the former president, Bill Clinton. And that was almost 25 years ago. However, I am sure she dreamt about running this country long before that. From the first lady to U.S. Senator, announcing her plans to run in 2007 and losing the delegate votes to Obama, ( which was not a real defeat) she was appointed Secretary of State until 2013. Thereafter Hillary announced her plans to run again. After finally becoming the official presidential nominee of the democratic party, she won with 200,000 more popular votes and counting but still lost the presidency to Donald Trump due to the electoral college.
We wake up every day where we make choices that will affect our future, in hopes that it leads us to our dreams. And for the kids that decided college was not going to get them there, they now must know that all their risks might not be enough. And even for the others, like myself who decided to take the traditional route of going to college and acquiring debt because we believed it was all going to work out in our favor, must come to realize that it might not be enough. As much as I want to be the exception to the rule, sometimes that is not reality. Every day for the fear of settling, I fight more aggressively to defeat those mediocre thoughts and continue strive for the “unachievable dreams” in hopes that my hard work trumps complacency knowing that there is a strong chance that it won't.
