The other day someone asked me two questions: the first was what was my biggest accomplishment in high school and the second was what was my biggest regret.
The first question seemed a no brainer. Inevitably, my biggest accomplishment would have to be something very number-based: maybe my GPA or a particular AP score I’d gotten. Something that people could easily grasp and use to draw conclusions about who I am. Going through college admissions, we’re practically all used to that.
Frankly, I’m not surprised that my immediate response would be directly associated with a number. Throughout four years of high school, my life has been a constant string of numbers: GPA, class rank, SAT scores, AP scores, etc. The funny thing is that focusing on all of these numbers made me start to forget about the moments that led up to them. I was always preoccupied with the outcome rather than with the preparation.
Have any of you seen “Talladega Nights”? Will Ferrell’s character, Ricky Bobby, lives his life with the idea that “if you ain’t first, you’re last.” That’s probably how a lot of people feel in high school. But like Ricky Bobby finds out in the end, you could be second or third or fourth or even five hundredth! And it really doesn’t matter. It’s about the experiences that get you to the finish line.
The thing is, I still sometimes resort to using numbers to define something, whatever it may be, my ability or anything really. Numbers are simple to use. They have universally known values. They represent distinct entities. To be really precise, they have the ability to define things exactly. For me, the latter is exactly the trouble. “To define is to limit.” This was written in Oscar Wilde’s novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray." “To define is to limit.” In terms of high school, it’s easy to define ourselves by values as impersonal as numbers. But Wilde had it right. When we place ourselves in certain spots based on some definition we’ve haphazardly engineered, we’re only limiting ourselves. Definitions prevent us from realizing our true potential and seeing how many possibilities there are outside of the ones we’ve confined ourselves to.
Yes, it’s true that I’m still proud of myself for the numbers I’ve achieved. But when I really think about it, there are individual moments in these past four years that I’m much more proud of. These moments involve weaknesses which inevitably also showcase strengths. They are times like when I realized I knew absolutely nothing about chemistry and spent the two weeks before the AP test obsessively watching YouTube videos made by some person in Oklahoma or another equally random state and practicing until I actually understood everything. Or it’s the time when I pushed myself to make it to the top of the Multnomah Falls in Oregon even though I was sick and thought I was definitely going to die on the switchbacks. Or maybe it’s the time that I made a somewhat okay vegan dinner for my best friends. It can be as simple as that. We each have our own idea of success and that’s the beauty of it! There are so many moments where we display perseverance or strength or whatever it is that we value most and those times are just as important, if not more important, than the times where there are already definite payoffs.
But all of what I’ve just said only has to do with the first question that I was asked: what is my biggest accomplishment. I haven’t even touched on my biggest regret. And I can’t say that I really have one. It’s definitely not noble. It’s just that I had a reason for every choice I made and whether or not things panned out, I’m standing here today, still alive at the least.
Non, je ne regrette rien. I don’t regret taking the French AP test last year even though I am nowhere near fluent. I don’t regret thinking I could handle first semester calculus BC alongside tennis season. And I definitely don’t regret binge-watching six seasons of Gossip Girl during finals. We can’t change the past. The only thing we can expect of ourselves is to learn from our experiences and use that knowledge to shape our futures. And the best part is if you have any regrets college is a clean slate. Nobody knows who you are unless you’re going to the same school as twelve other of our fellow graduates!
Now when I think about my biggest accomplishment in high school, I see a much bigger picture. My biggest accomplishment is playing tennis on a doubles’ team with Kelsey, it’s pushing my way to the front row of a George Ezra concert, it’s getting up on a box and dancing with my friends at homecoming! It’s all of these things and so much more.
I’m excited for the future and you should all be too. It’s a huge honor for me to get to graduate with such amazing people and I can only begin to imagine what you will all accomplish. Leaving high school is bittersweet. But I’ll never forget the laughter and happiness that for me were high school. Thank you to all of you for shaping my high school experience. Thank you.
