A defining moment in my life was when my Grandma passed away. Looking back at my life before this tragedy, education wasn’t a big deal to me. However, my mindset regarding education took a dramatic shift when both my grandparents passed away. At that moment, I had to make a decision. Either keep things how they were or live up to what my grandparents knew I could be. In this world, education is the key to success and glory. Thus, from that moment on, I knew I had to live up to my full potential. By the end of elementary school, I decided I didn’t want to be common. I wanted to be unique, something that would make those that believed in me proud.
Along the way, I had lots of family members that saw my potential, including my mother and grandparents. Since I was born, my grandparents always said that I had a bright future ahead of me. They always spoiled me and call me a genius.
I was on the honor roll each year to make my parents happy, but fun was my top priority. However, I was competitive, and I was always up for a challenging competition. I remember the timed math questions we did in elementary school and the math competitions we did every year. I strove to do my best because I didn’t want to lose. Looking back, that was how I stayed sharp in academics even though it wasn’t my main priority.
Entering middle school, I was determined to make something of myself. I engulfed myself in all forms of knowledge and information that I could obtain. Soon enough, my fifth-grade teacher saw my potential and recommended that I join the Excel program. Unfortunately, my first years in the Excel program didn’t go as I had predicted. The work in the class began to pile up and I eventually fell behind in standardized test scores as compared to my peers. I started to become discouraged. I contemplated whether I even deserved to be in the program. However, if there was one thing I remembered that kept me on track, it was the teachings of my mother. Since I was a child, my mom always stressed how practice makes perfect and how failures make the best learning experiences. This unrelenting mindset would end up being the solution to my many problems. I began to take my mother’s advice by studying the questions I missed on tests and asking my teacher for personal advice on bettering my performance. By the end of the sixth grade, small but significant alterations enabled me to have some of the highest scores in my class. And by the end of the year, my strive for greatness encouraged my middle school teacher to nominate me for the school’s Indomitable Spirit Award, which I later won. This moment was a significant highlight in my life because I learned from then on that my mother was, indeed, right. Practice and failure are a blessing.
My endeavors were slightly challenged following my middle school years. There was a workload shift coming into high school, and it was tough. Most days I had to stay up until one or two o’clock just to complete all my assignments for the day. With homework consistently piling up and extracurriculars taking up a chunk of my time, I had to learn how to correctly time manage and prioritize tasks. It was when I finally got into the swing of things that the pandemic hit. The whole structure I worked hard to create started to collapse and new issues started to arise. My self-motivation did not allow me to fall. I promised myself that I was going to make something out of myself, and I knew that that could only be done with hard work. I kept studying and keeping up on work, pushed through the pandemic with flying colors, and continued to keep the good work up through the rest of my years. I went on to secure my position as the number one academically ranked student throughout all four years of high school.
It was bumpy along the road, especially when I became obsessed with being perfect. I tried to do everything right and got angry when I made even the smallest mistake. Nevertheless, through my drawn-out pursuit of perfection, I’ve come to realize that inherently everyone is flawed, no matter how hard they try to hide it, and that you can’t please everyone. Everyone is human and makes mistakes, and attempting to please everyone ultimately leads to you losing yourself. Perfection is unrealistic. That is why perfection isn't what I seek anymore. I seek improvement in myself because I don’t want to become something I am not. In contrast, I seek to continue becoming the astonishing version of myself my grandparents knew I could be. It is important to focus on what matters most to you, not what will make others happy.