unlimited

The past few days, I've been quite miserable with thought about rejection, with the disappointment of my hopes, with realising that even Cornell is out of my grasp without a scholarship.

More than just for the prestige, on some level I wanted it to be a vindication. I wanted to get in somewhere superfantastic, so I could assure myself that I was of some great standard.

But you know, the fallacy of it all is that admissions is such a difficult process of selection. It is not a measure of a person's, so much as a measure of all that he has achieved, all the tangibles.

It is true that a lot of people who attend elite schools are very successful, both before and after. It is not a perfect measure, however. Empirically it is clear we have many great leaders and many influential people who wouldn't stand a chance at entering. They received their education elsewhere, through observation, through patience, through perseverance. They became who they are on the streets, in the ghettos, in the gutters of society.

I think more important than where we get in, or what praise the world heaps on us, is what we achieve within. To be able to say, I have conquered my demons, lived according to the highest ideals my soul can conceive, to achieve the best I know, is incomparable.

And even if your peak is lower than the peak of others, know that it is the journey that mattered, not the height.

And it is on the journey, on every journey, where you find friends, where you learn courage, where you find your worth. It is where the battles that test your spirit are.

And it is success if you can look back and say, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

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Do excuse me if you think that was pretentious and/or a load of tripe. I needed to write that, for my sake above all. Yeah, I'm feeling quite optimistic now, except for a few surges of regret and the thought of the tests next week =).