To Live For Success or To Live For Life

I came into UT with so much potential, so much ambition, so much creativity, so many goals, and an optimistic view on life. But, by my second semester here, school had ripped all those things away from me and crushed them without me even noticing how or when it happened although I did notice it happened. I became what they call a “good” studious student, but that was the extent of my life. That was all I was, a good student in the mass of thousands of other good students; an arbitrary number striving to get good numbers that decided whether I was a “smart, knowledgeable” nobody, or whether I was just a plain nobody. And boy did I strive to get those good numbers. My free time consisted primarily of studying, eating, sleeping, and then more studying. I fell into the routine. A perfect good little nobody student routine life – study during the week, go out a bit on weekend nights, then study some more. I was perfect in every which way – if you consider that being perfect. But I was missing something, and I knew I was missing something, but couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what it was that I was missing. I realize now I was missing life.

I remember my first year here was just very numb. It is hard to remember anything from then because I was so neutral to everything. The good part was that I knew that I was neutral, or I guess you could say apathetic, to things. People would ask me how things were going and I really didn’t have a response, other than things were going. There was no substance, things just went and that was all they did. They just went. I did things, though, and some of them were fun, but the fun was only temporary and didn’t have a lasting effect. I didn’t know how I became like this, I have faint notion of what it might have been, but I only realize it now. I think it may have been disappointment. I always used to say disappointment ate at you, and it really ate away at me. But the thing is, it ate away at me slowly, to the point where I didn’t notice it. Plus, my extreme passiveness didn’t allow me to get too “disappointed” with things too easily because I was very easy to take what was in front of me and take the easier, less confrontational route, even if it wasn’t really what I wanted. The fact that I did that, and still do that today, could be a bit of passivity and pessimism working together: a combination of a kind of acceptance that I’m never really going to get what I want, so I might as well settle. And that is exactly what I did, I settled. It seemed with every aspect of my life I compromised and settled. I did what I was good at – making the grades – but I didn’t strive for what I truly wanted – having a fulfilling life. Or maybe I didn’t know what I really wanted or I was scared and didn’t know how to approach doing it, and so that left me with doing only what I knew how to do best, studying and getting good grades. Whatever the case, I was in a major routine. Sophomore year came and the routine started changing.

Fall semester of sophomore year, I was still in a very distinct routine. However, it still consisted of very typical things. Now, not only was I a good student, but I was also a good girlfriend. Inserted into the equation of the studious student routine, was the girlfriend routine. Every week I would study and focus on school, and then on the weekends I would go home – driving all the way to north Dallas - and visit my boyfriend of 3 years. I must admit though, that it did take me a while to fall into the “good girlfriend” routine, and I’m very sorry to him that it took me that long because I think I hurt him in this way. However, I’m also sorry to myself that I fell into that position because it made me a weaker person. Now I was a combination of your stereotypical insecure girl who was extremely dependent on her boyfriend along with your stereotypical studious student. However, being an insecure girl with a boyfriend did add something new into the equation, something that I had been missing the previous year. It let me experience feelings again. Although they weren’t the best emotions all the time, they were emotions none the less, and they added a taste of some substance in my life. Bitter or sweet, having a taste of something is much better than not tasting anything at all. However, over the break I experienced the most horrible tastes of all: the taste of a heart broken. My boyfriend of three years broke up with me, only to start seeing someone not even a week after. By this time the bit of substance I did have in my life focused primarily on him and having him ripped away from my life really, really hurt. As shallow as this was, I was in a lot of pain – it was probably one of the worst things I’ve had to experience in my life. I have to admit that even here and now, about three months after the fact, I am still suffering. I feel horrible for it affecting me so much though, because it seems so shallow, and trust me, in my life I’ve had to face things that were much, much more horrible. Not saying that those things didn’t make me feel just as much pain as this, but the pain didn’t seem to last nearly as long as this, or maybe I was better at hiding it. Actually I think one of these tragic events that I experienced happened earlier last year, and may have been the cause for my extreme attachment to my ex, as a means to try and fill a void. I was in pain and mourning all winter break, and I came back to school extremely confused as to how I was going to handle it and if I was going to be handle it. Juggling heart break and despair with academic success is quite a task to take. Thus far, however, my life has seemed to go in a direction I didn’t completely anticipate.

I anticipated that I might be able to, or would try to avoid my ill thoughts about events from the previous year, by replacing them with school work. I knew it would be hard, but I figured that would be the only way I could deal with both, by avoiding one and focusing on another. I guess I planned on going back to the neutral school routine, where I didn’t allow myself to feel anything or latch on to any feelings. Which according to Buddhist thought is the best way to reach enlightenment. I would have made a perfect Buddhist during my first year here. However, things didn’t go as planned, but I can’t figure out if it is a good thing or a bad thing. I did the school thing for a couple of weeks, but it was hard. My fatalistic and now even more pessimistic view made it hard for me to dedicate my life to making good grades. I knew before that wasn’t the best way to live, but I didn’t know how to get out of the cycle. It was installed in me that I must study and make good grades. It has always been programmed in me to do this, and I don’t think I’ll really be able to get away from that, but one can still maintain to get good grades and have a life outside of school. However, I began to realize more and more that a grade really means nothing in the end. I mean, I used to realize this a while back, but was never able to get out of not stressing over grades. I was living my life for success and I didn’t know why, but I guess I didn’t really know what else to live for, since it’s so installed in our society to aim for success. But has no one considered living life for life?

One may ask, what does “life” encompass? It may encompass this strive for success, but I don’t think one should dedicate their entire life for just this, although this seems to be the case for many. Straying from my original plan of dedicating my life to “being a student”, I began to actually have a life outside of school. I cannot credit this “outside” life all to myself, however, and I owe a great deal to someone I met only a month ago. In our month of knowing each other, she has had a huge influence on my life. Some may see her as a bad influence on my life, pulling me away from studying all the time and stressing so much about school, while others may see her as a good influence, leading me to having fun and enjoying my days. I admit, sometimes even I have a bit of conflicting thoughts on whether it’s good that I’m being pulled away from my school ways to actually having a life. I think this is because my grades are somewhat reflecting it. Although, I still study as hard as I did before for my tests, and I’m putting the same amount of effort, my actual “test taking” skills have for some reason diminished, and I don’t really know why. It could be because of her influence or it could be because subconsciously I am forcing myself into realization that grades don’t matter – because I do have the knowledge and I do learn from the class but I just doesn’t seem to reflect on my tests because of pretty dumb reasons – or it could be that I’m doing just as well as I used to but my teachers have different expectations or it could be because ill thoughts about my break up are still haunting me. It could be a number of things, or a combination of all of them, but whatever it is, it is forcing me to reconsider things. Do I want to go back to “living for success”, blocking out all emotions, all life, and dedicating it to school work so that I can fair better on the tests – note that this might not be the right solution at all to “doing better” on these tests because I feel like I know the stuff just as well as I did with my other classes that I did well in. So taking this risk could prove faulty and may make me regret what I did. 


Should I live solely for success, or should I live for life. I’m in a dilemma. Still stressing about grades – as you can probably see, – still trying to realize that they really don’t mean much in the end, and still trying to figure out how and what I want to live my life for. Should I accept what I was raised to do, to live for success, or should I actually start living life the way I want to live my life – the way I see most fulfilling. Although I’m not really sure what that way is, I can tell you one thing I know for sure: my idea of a fulfilling life isn’t one consisting of a million dollar house, expensive cars, and a rich neighborhood. That’s all I’ve concluded thus far. But this adds into the equation – why am I striving for good grades if I don’t even need them for my future. Although getting a good grade is nice for my pride presently, will it matter in the end? Is it good to stress about grades and success in school and dedicate your life around this one goal for a feeling of pride and a sense of accomplishment one day in the future, or is it better to live and enjoy every present moment and learn what you want to learn when you want to learn it?