High School to Present
I transferred to public school for 11th and 12th grade, which changed the trajectory of my life. Socially, I was a ghost amongst my peers aside from the occasional acquaintance. Academically, I began to excel. I even got an A in English!
Public school gave me a wonderful education. My math teacher instilled good habits that served as a robust foundation when I took Calculus and Physics in college. I had an incredible chemistry teacher who took points off for not showing work. That’s what you want. It may be frustrating in the moment if your teacher is super picky, but it’ll serve you well in college.
Environment is extremely important in shaping our youth. There’s much debate as to whether intelligence is due to nature or nurture. I think nature gives you a starting point, but it matters how you develop that intelligence, which is why nurture is crucial.
It’s like a track race. Some runners start further up the track than others, but ultimately the playing field evens out after enough time. You can master anything (within reason) with enough grit, patience, and discipline. You just have to want it bad enough and put in the effort.
College was both easy and difficult for me. Once I overcame the learning curve, things made sense and I could get away with cramming occasionally for exams (I don’t recommend cramming as it brings unnecessary stress).
I loved college because I could finally study what interested me. I was a general Biology major, but almost every STEM class I took appealed to my natural curiosity. My favorite classes were: Plant Physiology, Genetics, Microbiology, Physics II, Organic Chemistry II, and Biochemistry.
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think classes like Organic Chemistry, Physics, and Genetics are overhyped for their level of difficulty. Of course they’re challenging, but they aren’t impossible. Many students lose sight of that fact and become intimidated by the sheer amount of information they don’t know.
For me, the most difficult thing about college was getting recognized for my hard work. Before I was a college student, my teachers and classmates didn’t have expectations of me. Even when I was a senior in high school, I’d overhear my classmates talking bad about me in the hallways because they perceived my quietness in class as a sign of stupidity. I didn’t enjoy hearing this, but there was no external pressure to do well and I liked that.
You usually hear about people getting bullied when they’re in elementary school. I was subject to bullying as a second grader, but I also experienced bullying my first semester in college in my biology class. As much as I tried blending in, my classmates found out I continuously scored the highest in the class and I became a target.
I remember coming to class, minding my own business and getting made fun of for the clothes I wore and my physical features. I loved biology, but I dreaded coming to class because I thought what is it going to be today?
On the opposite end, my professors thought highly of me, which was an honor since they were the smartest people I’ve ever met. However, it was overwhelming as I wasn’t used to being noticed. I wanted to maintain my image and not disappoint the people who thought I had something special. Yes, I did very well academically, but it came at a heavy price.
One of my favorite memories in college was when I got a 47 on my Physics II test and my professor asked to meet with me. She was a tenured professor and I highly respected her. When I met with her, she was concerned about my grade, and I cooly responded that I knew I could do better. She believed me and saw my conviction.
A few months later, I was in her office and I mentioned when I trusted my gut I could get the right answer, but I didn’t listen to it all the time. Her response, and I will never forget this, was trust your gut.
It was such a simple response, but she gave me my power back. She understood what I needed to hear in order to do well.
When I took my physics final, I experienced pure bliss because I knew I was rocking the test the entire time. There was so much struggle behind that preparation and it was such a satisfying feeling knowing that I made it. I ended up finishing the class with an A.
Academic achievements gave me an artificial confidence, but I still never felt good enough. I had hoped accolades and getting on the Dean’s list would make me feel better, but it just felt like I was missing something.
Even in the jobs I’ve had over the last few years, people have showered me with praise and it angered me. The circumstances from my past caused me to be suspicious of people. I wanted to blend in and hide, but being noticed was my new normal.
I also didn’t think I was doing anything extraordinary to garner recognition in these situations. I could adapt to environments because I thought everyone was so much smarter, more talented, and better than me. I wanted to be just as good as them. I realized the quickest way to achieve this was to simply pay attention.
How do you know who to pay attention to in a new environment?
The most confident people who don’t necessarily know the most will be the most vocal. They’ll give you a basic foundation of understanding that serves as your mental scaffold. However, the most important people to pay attention to are the quiet ones. Their words are powerful and they know this. When they decide to speak, it’s for a very specific reason. The questions they ask are jaw dropping because they bring a creative perspective to the table.
If you’re in a new environment where you feel out of place, all you have to do is sit back and watch. Each person will naturally assume a position in that particular environment. It’s similar to on the first day of school where you walk into your class that doesn’t have assigned seats and each person sits in a seat they think is “good”. Their chosen seat becomes their “assigned” seat for the rest of the year.
All of this is to say that you aren’t your past. It took many years for me to accept my past and let go of my bitterness. Ultimately, how you view yourself is the most important thing. You’re the protagonist in your life. There’s a term in psychology called the looking glass self. It proposes that the people you interact with serve as a mirror and affect how you view yourself.
I’ve known about the meaning of the looking glass self for several years, but I didn’t comprehend its definition until several months ago. My new understanding allowed me to finally accept people’s compliments as truth because they believed in me. I no longer thought they were lying to me.
For years, I didn’t have a support system and I relied completely on myself. I had an inner critic, but at least I knew I could trust my intuition most of the time, and I went pretty far in life. However, I could only overcome my most difficult challenges with the help of my support system.
There’s been incredible people in my life (you know who you are if you’re reading this) throughout the years who have seen something in me and encouraged me when I’ve wanted to give up on my dreams. The sad part is most of their words fell on deaf ears and I couldn’t understand why they were being supportive of me. I thought there was a catch, but there was never a catch.
I could take all the credit for my most recent achievements if I wanted to because no one would question me. Maybe that would make me seem like a superhero and some crazy smart person, but that wouldn’t be an authentic story. My support system deserves just as much credit for my successes as I do. They reminded me who I am and why I’m doing what I’m doing. They showed me that my potential is limitless.
That’s a big reason why I decided to create this website. It’s to honor those who helped me along the way and still support me. There were many bad times and I kept all my report cards from my childhood until recently. I thought keeping them and reading my teacher’s words periodically was helping me see how far I’d come. In reality, it was opening old wounds and telling me that I wasn’t good enough to achieve what I wanted. My teacher’s negative words merged with my inner critic and I became my worst enemy.
I look back on my childhood and don’t know how I overcame the learning difficulties. The good and the bad times turned me into who I am and I would never change the past for that reason. However, that’s not a valid reason to hold onto the bad memories because they don’t serve me.
This is my chance to offer a word of encouragement to anyone reading this. There’s so much goodness out there and most of the time, it’s right in front of you. You just have to be receptive to it. Even when you’ve faced your fair share of struggles, you still have time to make new memories that replace the bad things from your past.
Pursue your calling and interests because they will lead to a fulfilling life. Your talents are a gift to yourself and to the world. Let people help you because you can get much farther in life with support.
Everyone puts on a mask in society. We hide our true feelings, insecurities, etc. to maintain an image. The people who you admire the most probably don’t feel like they’re doing anything extraordinary. They’re just trying to get through the day and have no idea where they’re going.
We take things for granted and assume people who are successful had it easy. Everyone has their own unique struggles and we have no idea what they are. We don’t know people’s mental state or how they perceive the world. Everyone’s experience of life is unique to them, which is why the education system does a disservice to our youth by standardizing learning.
The people who are masters at their craft have one thing in common: practice. When you view people this way, it humanizes them and you can understand that you have what it takes to be successful at whatever challenges you.
In conclusion, don’t develop an inferiority complex because it’s extremely difficult to overcome. It’ll bleed into every aspect of your life and you won’t even realize it. If you never feel good enough, you’ll always feel like you have to prove your worth to people.
If you see someone who’s an expert, use it as inspiration. There’s no shortcut to success, you have to work hard. If you outwork the competition, then you’ll go far in life because most don’t have the diligence and dedication to keep trying.
The irony is that other people aren’t your true competition. They serve as a mirror to reveal your weaknesses. Your competition is yourself and until you face what you’re running from, your growth is limited.
