When I was a kid, I wanted to be an uber successful entrepreneur. Or, in the words of 10-year-old me: a baker.
I imagined a pantry gleaming with Costco-sized bags of flour, a never-ending supply of cupcakes and a storefront decorated in my favorite pastels. Now, when my family members ask what I want to do for the rest of my life, I lodge my frosting-covered dream in the back of my mind and scour for a more suitable response. “I’m interested in writing, but we’ll see how it goes,” is usually enough for them to move on to questions about where I’m applying to college.
But it isn’t just me who has been forced to morph a dream into something “realistic.” The way students talk about the numerous activities they’re a part of, programs they’re adding to their resume or ways they’ve demonstrated interest in colleges makes me wonder how far we’re willing to go to get ahead.
Since I was a freshman, I’ve heard joining competitive extracurriculars and summer programs were essential to thriving later in life. The future feels paramount, and in order to control it, I’ve clung to what I’ve been told will lead to success. While some of this advice may be helpful, encouraging students to pursue activities solely to advance their future has harmful implications. When we make choices based on how we think they’ll make us appear to people like employers or admissions officers, we can easily forget to find things we actually enjoy doing.
As the daunting Nov. 1 deadline approaches, the Common Application’s 10-slot activity list stares back at me. How can I make this experience sound more important? Will colleges care about this activity? I wish I’d done an internship like that other girl did. I think about everything except what these activities mean to me.
Regardless of whether someone’s a freshman just discovering their interests in high school, or a senior like me, it’s imperative we consider what makes us fulfilled and not only what looks good on paper. If we get stuck performing for what we think others value, we may begin to resent the lifestyles we chose or feel adrift without any true passions. If we live for one version of success, we may not recognize when it’s time to choose a different path that might serve us better. As a first step to reclaiming my joy, I’ve created my own activity list.
Here are 10 activities I do that have absolutely, positively nothing to do with somebody else measuring my “success”:
1. Walking on brisk fall mornings.
2. Buying every color Post-it.
3. Writing thank you notes to my teachers.
4. Forgetting to water my plants.
5. Smelling the candles in Target.
6. Watching 21 seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
7. Updating my brother on 21 seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
8. Discovering yet another local coffee shop.
9. Rereading excerpts of books I read a year ago.
10. Baking for my own enjoyment.
Whether it’s through creating a list or simply being aware of the sacrifices we make when trying to succeed, I encourage students to choose activities they’re genuinely interested in. Enjoying something is reason enough to do it. It’s time to value our happiness in the present as much as in the future. It’s time to pick passion, not performance.