As a student in a competitive college-preparatory high school, it is easy to lose yourself in a system where everything is quantifiable. You are measured by the grades you earn, the test scores you receive, and the awards to which you are bestowed. As a freshman, I was ingrained to believe that by meeting idealized measures of success I would be happy. This however was not the case. At times when I was solely focused on academics, I felt dehumanized for lack of individuality. I realized that grades and honors alone are worthless without people with whom to share them.
This is the message I took away from my favorite book, Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. The book is about a reunion between Mitch and his old dying professor, Morrie, and their last lesson together before Morrie dies: learning the meaning of life and how to live. Morrie explains that many people live meaningless lives even when busy doing things they think are important, because they are chasing the wrong things. The decaying Morrie is more jovial and vivacious than everyone around him for he knows how to live a fulfilling life, by devoting himself “to loving others, to the community around him, and to creating something that gives him purpose and meaning.”
The best part of my high school career was forming communities and niches wherever I went. In school, my academic niche was the Social Studies wing, not because I took almost every accelerated course offered and entered every competition sponsored by the department, but because the department was a family to me. As a volunteer there, I made both photocopies and friends. Schmoozing with teachers about why they started teaching, about current events, and even about my own life, created an unbreakable bond between us. Without marking my academic territory in such a big school, I would have gotten lost in the crowds.
Outside of school however, is where I was rejuvenated to follow Morrie’s words and learned “how to give out love, and let it come in.” Through my youth group NCSY, the Jewish Student Union, and Write On For Israel, my passions transformed into tangible practices. My activities became labors of love and whether it was spending hours planning events, writing motivational speeches, or thinking of ways to get newcomers involved I didn’t feel that I was working because it was enjoyable. As I poured more of my heart and time into the hands of other people involved in these activities I was embraced by the returns of the propagation of one small action. Finding friends to call at two in the morning bawling, whose crises become my crises and whose successes become by successes, and with whom I can talk about serious matters or laugh so hard I cry was what made these activities truly meaningful. The fire ignited by small moments helps illuminate the mundane, and elevates my time spent in the world.
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