College decisions don’t feel real. I don’t know how to properly process this kind of thing – whether acceptance, rejection, deferral, or whatever other result may come from my applications both now and in the future, I don’t know if I’ll be able to think of them in the right way. They have a sense of impermanence and detachment about them, almost akin to a combination of a lottery and a game show. There’s lots of answers you can give, some more correct than others, but ultimately there’s no right answer and getting selected feels like luck.
I think I’ve had this issue with a lot of things related to applications, but I don’t think it’s properly sunk in that this is going to decide the next four years of my life. I have a vision for myself, some kind of end goal, but the way there is unclear. All I know is that I have to do good now for good things later, but I still have trouble coming to terms with that. If a sequence of events comes with only the promise of maybe receiving a reward or desired goal at the end, do you still take the journey? Do you still follow up on it even when you don’t know where it may lead you? I’m afraid to step into the darkness.
I think I am also dissatisfied by the process itself. To sum up my life in a dossier, one designed specifically to highlight everything I have done and can do, feels like presenting a version of myself that feels less real. I can talk about my national championship victories, but where’s the space for me to talk about being encouraged to keep studying by the people around me? I would say one is a far more formative point in my life given that the lessons will always stick with me, but perhaps that is what the essays are for. To express what you feel are the most important parts about you, the simple and the mundane, the important and the forgotten. I hate the act of writing about myself, but can gladly talk about things I’ve done. As long as it’s not focused on myself, it works. I talk about my periphery, but not me. I wonder if that is the way I should go about this.
I think I feel sorry for admissions officers. To both know that what they are going off of is not a full picture and yet to potentially decide a kid’s path and life sounds like an exhausting ordeal. Or perhaps they are pragmatic about it, and have systems that I am not privy to. All I can do is put my best foot forward and pray they receive me in good faith. I wonder what could be different if I changed what I did yesterday, or what I did three years ago. Could I, knowing what was to come, have optimized myself for this choice? Would I enjoy that? Would I still be me?
I think I am reading too many wikipedia pages on philosophy recently. All I can think about is what I am, and what I want to do, and why I seem to be able to neither do what would be best nor what I find enjoyable without feeling like I am missing something. “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life” – I can only hope this is true. As I sit here and write this, I wonder what my reaction to my decisions will be. Will I be happy? Will I be resigned? Will I feel that this was the best decision I made with the knowledge I had? Will those feelings change if the decision went the other way?
Did I talk about myself as me, or did I talk about the version of me that other people see? Did I talk about myself as me, or did I talk about the version of me I think would be best? Did I talk about myself as me, or did I talk about the version of me that I want to be?
Who do I want to be?