Double Standards of Success

There are so many double standards in the world, however none of them are greater than the double standard of success.

As you probably know, this is the time of year in which college acceptance letters are mailed and received. Second semester seniors already know, or just found out which colleges they have been accepted to. Obviously, there will be a select few that are accepted into the prestigious and fabled ivy leagues.

In every school, there is that senior who is super accomplished, super prestigious, and super successful. There is that type of senior in my school, and in fact, she is a friend. To protect her identity I shall refer to her as Bene. (which means "successful" in Lain) To give you some background on Bene, she is not the pretentious type that you would expect to be accepted into an Ivy League. She's down to earth, very nice, mature, and secretly inappropriate and funny. I don't know what other colleges she was accepted to, however I know that she was accepted to Dartmouth, Yale, and Harvard. Pretty awesome, right?

I run a "Humans Of..." page for my school that is inspired by the popular blog Humans of New York. I featured Bene on my page, and if you are familiar with Humans of New York, they often interview the person they feature. I asked Bene, "What worries you the most about the future?" Part of her response was, "I'm trying to choose a college. I hope I'm not sounding pretentious right now, but I'm choosing between Harvard and Yale. I know people are going to give me flak for this, but it really is the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life!

I was surprised that Bene got some backlash for mentioning that she was choosing between Harvard or Yale. One comment said, "The biggest worry about the future is whether you go to Harvard or Yale? Rough life." 

This highlights the double standard on Ivy League colleges. If you get in one, you would be very excited and proud, however if you didn't you'd probably think, "Whatever. People who are accepted are too pretentious." Also, if Bene was talking about choosing between Boston College and Boston University, no one would care that she mentioned the names of the colleges. Not that BC and BU are bad schools, they are just not as famous or held in prestige as Harvard or Yale. 

What really annoys me is when people who did not get accepted into their dream Ivy League school say things like, "Your college doesn't determine how successful you will be" or "Getting into an Ivy League doesn't make you successful" I totally agree that your college does not determine you successful you will end up in life, however when someone says,  "Getting into an Ivy League doesn't make you successful" I want to  scream, "Bitch, get your jealous ass self away from this planet. I know for a fact that if you got into an Ivy League, you'd be rubbing that acceptance letter in everyone's' face. Stop your goddamn hating!" (sorry but not sorry for the vulgar words!)

My super classy (not really) note to the haterz:

stfu cuz you all jealous

Honestly, the double standards of success are derived from jealousy. After all, "Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius." -Fulton J. Sheen

In a myopic sense, getting into a prestigious college, or the college of your dreams is the biggest success of your life. However, in a long term sense, your success is determined by your accomplishments of the goals you set for yourself, whether that is writing a novel, service trips abroad, landing your dream job, or becoming a millionaire. Don't let the fact that you did not get accepted into your dream college ruin your sense of success, and don't let the jealous haters prevent you from being proud to get accepted into an Ivy.

A Teenager's Opinion...

... on the missing Malaysian Flight 370

As a disclaimer, the opinions expressed are my opinions, and they are opinions. Obviously, people will disagree with me. In addition, I am not exactly the most politically educated person, so I might get some facts wrong, or I might not understand the politics between countries.

OK, I will start this off by saying: Dear Malaysia, you are not a teenager who got drunk for the first time. Get. Your. Sh*t. Together.

My biggest problem with missing Flight 370 is the search for the airplane. Kudos to those who are searching for debris, I realize that it is a nearly impossible task and I am very glad that 25 countries are now looking for the missing flight. But that being said, there are so many people looking for the flight, but who is the leader? Malaysia obviously should be the leader, because after all, it is their plane that went missing, but the Malaysian officials aren't doing very well dealing with the missing flight. Malaysia is so inconsistent. One second they are saying that all the flight passengers are clearing of any criminal suspicion, but another second they are stating that all passengers are under suspicion. Make up your damn mind!  Say if something groundbreaking was discovered during the search, then who would get the right to examine it. Would it be Malaysia? Or China? Or Australia? Or the country who first discovered it? There is such a lack of leadership. I'm not a very avid news-reader so I don't know why there is a lack of leadership or if one country has in fact taken control of this whole search.

Something that infuriates me is Malaysia's interactions with the affected families. As an Asian-American, this is more personal because the majority of the passengers (153 people) were Chinese, and there was an American couple on board. The flight is missing, and nothing has been discovered, but at least give the families answers or bad news! The families with loved ones on the flight want closure, so at least tell them that it is unlikely that anyone aboard the plane survived, or tell them that with the evidence that they have, everyone on board died. It's depressing news, but at least it offers some closure.

Also, I've been wondering, do the families of the missing flight passengers get compensation? I know that that's a terrible and materialistic/money-centric thing to think, because nothing can, and ever will replace a lost loved one. But honestly, do the families receive any compensation? At the very least, the families deserve answers.

I have also wondered what if they never find debris? What it the plane vanished without a trace? What then? What could explain something like this? Most importantly, why did the plane vanish?

As a side note, I have a huge respect for CNN. To me, its mind boggling how they can broadcast hours of coverage for the missing Flight 370 even though there are no new break throughs. How do they spend hours covering the same content without being uber repititional???

Who you are

Who are you?

This question is probably the most thought provoking question in the world. This question is the epitome of self reflection. These three words have the power of causing an existential crisis and a total questioning of your spirit. In my opinion, this question carries a lot of meaning. You don't answer this question by saying, "Well, I like sports. I do blah blah blah blah, and my hobbies are: this, that..." Who you are is much more than what you are interested in or what you do. Who you are is your basic essence. As an analogy, who you are is the quarks of an atom of an element.

Who am I?

Honestly, I do not know who I am. I recognize my specific characteristics, attributes, and aptitudes, but it is impossible for me to sum up myself in one eloquent paragraph. Sure, I can describe my hobbies and personality, but it is impossible for me, or anyone to describe the very essence of their being.

I think it's okay to not know who you are. I think it's totally normal. No matter what your age, like if you are a 14 year old like me, or a 70 year old, I believe that everyone does not always see their whole self. I might be getting really philosophical here, but finding out who you are is part of the meaning of life.

So whether you are a teen wondering why you are having a hard time identifying yourself, or you are an adult wondering why you have been feeling so lost, don't worry. There is a road to self-discovery, and that road is called life.

The whole "inspiration" for this post occurred to me one day while I was showering. As most people do in the shower, I was contemplating life. I was thinking of the future, past, college, and the meaning of life. Suddenly, I thought, "If someone just asked me now to tell them who I am, what would I say?" For once, my flamboyant self was at a loss for words. I did not know how to describe myself. I came to an "epiphany" that who I am is not something I could just recite to someone, or a college essay that could launch me to the Ivies, but rather something very personal and something that can't be found, but rather discovered.