Since coming to Cornell, I have been faced with the desire to be perfect: get perfect grades, be accepted to highly-rated clubs, and have a flourishing social life. And yet, in the midst of all this, I was not happy. It is not uncommon for freshman to struggle in college, but for me, it felt different. All my friends loved Cornell and found their places, but I did not. I was not happy, and I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I held this feeling coming into sophomore year, and it was not until attending the talk about the UThrive book that my viewpoint changed. The thing that stood out to me most was that I need to get comfortable with being good enough. I never wanted to be just average, and I strove for success in everything I did. But at the end of the day, my happiness comes before making myself sick over being perfect. I know that I can do anything I set my mind to, but sometimes it is hard to be positive in such a competitive atmosphere as Cornell University, especially as a pre-med student. Yet, this talk taught me that happiness takes more than simply being successful. Happiness takes duration, strong will power, and self-care. I realized then and there that I was placing more focus on being successful and was neglecting my own being. This book talk was more than a mere talk for me; it was the wake-up call I did not even realize I needed.
Rose Scholars Fall 2019
Endless possibilities
I also spent quite some time on this struggle about “perfection”. At the end of the day, though, it is a completely arbitrary concept, and one that isn’t even achievable. It is also somewhat determined by the outside world and not by yourself, which is problematic.
What does it mean to be “perfect”? How do you measure that? How do you know when you got there, as it always seems like there’s more to be done?
It took me a really long time to understand that searching for this “perfect” me was an action that simply drained my energy, made me neglect all self-care, and, in several ways, blinded me to what really matters to me. It was very toxic to myself, and something I slowly tried to remove from my head.
I’m way happier now than I was an year or two years ago. There’s still a lot I need to do to really remove this thought process from my head (or at least turn it into something healthy), but I’ve already learned a lot about myself in the process. I now know what *my own* definition of “success” is (which has absolutely nothing to do with usual notions of success and prestige), how to achieve it and why it’ll make me happy. I also understand my boundaries and limits a lot better now 🙂
So I’d say seach inwards instead of outwards. What do *you* really want?