Success

        The reassured attitude of the average American high school student interests me more than most.  You see as a student myself I am rarely enthralled by my lessons and even more than that I have no confidence in my success.  I have no dreams in this way, no future plotted out for myself, no expectations of where I will be years from now.  If I could take a survey and ask purely what the wish of every person in our school is, I am entirely sure that everyone would wish for success, but years from now at our reunions few will have reached that ultimate dream.  In this way, aiming for the top will have gotten them no where but rather inversely make it seem as if they had not made due progress.  I did not discover this tidbit of wisdom until about 10 or 11 years into my life, that a purposeful stupidity can be the biggest key to success.  If for all of your life you give the best there possibly is then there is nowhere to go from there and absolutely nothing to prove, solely the highest expectations to live up to.  As a child who does nothing, and enjoys nothing, and more importantly is only average, there is much more to achieve and therefore much more praise to receive.  Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is the lazy road, that of course I can do much better, but in that statement is once again that reassured attitude that tells us that we are all not only special, but more special than those who surround us.  What would make me any different from the child who still eats paste?  What makes me a higher functioning member of society that that child?  We are both human, mostly healthy, and yet I am the disappointment.  The hypocrisy of our school system is shown here, how the child who is dumb as a brick is praised for the simplest of activities and the child who chooses not to succeed is punished.  Just because a child has the capability to do something does not mean that action is necessary.

         Because success is relative, everyone has a different idea of it.  For one person success could be simply living to the age of 5, while for another they will not be happy until they manage to integrate the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.  The real theme behind both of these is doing what makes that person happy.  What is the point of life if we waste it?  You don’t have to agree with me, or even try to see my side.  All I ask is that you take time out of your day to think about what you enjoy and whom you enjoy, because in the end nothing else matters.