Carve out your own niche in life

I was sitting with my best friend and she turned to me and said

that in life she had gotten everything that she had wanted. I agreed

with her. It was a lie.

I sat there afterward and thought about all the times when life

had thrown me a curve ball, when something that I had wanted badly

had slipped out of my reach and was gone forever.

I wanted to get straight A’s, but I got a C in Latin and got a D

on my Biology final. I wanted to win class president and lost to the

person I didn’t want to win. I wanted to pass my permit test, but I

missed 10 instead of eight. I wanted to have perfect skin, but I do

have teenage acne. I wanted to have Heidi Klum as my girlfriend, but

she is not. I don’t have any of these things. In life, if we don’t

get everything that we want, are we all failures?

In life, we are given a strict guideline -- a model that our

parents and elders schedule for us. We should be amazing at one

sport, donate all our time to a charity and be beautiful. We should

be smart and socially popular. We all should get into Ivy League

colleges and go on to get successful careers, make millions and then

settle down in Orange County with our beautiful spouse and children

to live in bliss and joy. Our lives should be filled with success

after success; we should triumph in all of our tasks and turn all of

our dreams into reality.

The American dream used to be that you could grow up and make

yourself into something better and greater. Where did perfect SAT

scores come into the picture? Why do we place so much emphasis on the

wrong things?

Why has America lost its Norman Rockwell attitude and come to

grasp the Princeton Review’s? Suddenly baseball in the street before

supper has turned into baseball scholarships and microwave meals.

Sports are no longer played for fun but as an edge to break into a

better life. Mothers and fathers have turned conniving -- forgetting

their child’s mental stability just as long as they pull off those

good grades and was a star player.

I have seen all kinds of parenting. The kind of parents that force

their kids into becoming brilliant, the kind that don’t care and the

kind that care, but understand. I have seen children rip their hair

out while trying to get good grades, and others stab their books and

belongings in rage.

America must take on a sympathetic tone. All of us cannot be

geniuses. All of us cannot be beautiful. All of us cannot make

millions of dollars. All of us cannot be perfect. What happened to

the belief that there was no such thing as perfect?

Some of the most successful people I know today were not the

smartest people in school, or the ones with the most hours of

community service.

But the greater question lies in how do we deem success. Is it the

size of the bank account, the heart or the personality?

Unfortunately, in general, it is the size of the bank account, which

is sad but true. We need to get back into the old-time belief that

grades do not matter in the scheme of life, people are flawed and

that not everything comes easy to us all.

I dare teenagers to forget about the expected and shock the world

around you. Instead of telling your family that you want to be an

investment banker who cheats on his tax return, tell them that you

want to design a book cover or invent the replacement for paper. Tell

your friends you want to go to community college. Say your name is

Sexy Lady when people ask for it at Starbucks.

In the end, we all grow old and die, but if we lived our lives by

those manuals, what fun would we have had? If we only live once, then

why be average? Why not be extraordinary?

I think that life has dealt me curve balls, but they have been for

a reason. I may not be the smartest person in the world or the most

talented, but I believe in myself.

I know that someday I will succeed in my own way. I will look back

and realize that all those things that I had wanted and did not get

were worthless. Grades don’t matter. Being president of my class, who

cares? Receiving a C in Latin was not the end of the world. Getting

my permit a week later was not unbearable. Even my teenage acne will

pass, and maybe someday Heidi Klum will fall in love with me.

I have the rest of my life to have all of that happen and even

more. We are not failures. I mean those of us who don’t receive

everything that we wanted. We are just every person in the world.

Because what I realized was that my friend was lying, too. In

life, we make out our own rules, and we make our lives the way they

should be. No one gets everything, but the things that we do get are

wonderful and the things we don’t, just weren’t meant to be. This is

just one man’s opinion.

* MICHAEL A. WALEK is a Sage Hill School sophomore whose columns

will appear occasionally in the Forum section.