When I was in seventh grade, a friend of mine who went to another school joined a clique of girls for which the standard uniform was a pair Juicy Couture sweats paired with Ugg boots. Not only did the clique enforce this strict dress code among their own, but they also judged those on the outside who didn't comply. "Can your parents not afford it?" they would ask in mock concern, as if that were the only reason a 13 year old girl would choose not to dress like 70 year-old retirees who spent their days bird watching in Florida. (The velour tracksuit trend has baffled me since 2005, and I begrudgingly admire how Juicy could get away with selling them for obscene amounts of money, but that's another rant for another post.) At that age, I thought that forming an entire impression of a fellow human being by the cloth covering her ass was the most shallow form of judgment, and something straight out of "Mean Girls" antagonist Regina George's playbook. My own clique, however, was not any less shallow. The only difference is that we judged people by a completely different set of numbers.
Instead of the number of designer brand boots one owned, or the number of dollars in one's bank account, our metrics were grades and test scores. Indeed, these two topics would often dominate lunch conversations. (Did you hear what such and such got on the 3rd period Geometry test? Oh my god, did she even study?) As high school went on, SAT scores became public information as did college acceptances. Those who received admissions into the coveted halls of the ivy league were worshiped and revered, and those who opted for state schools were pitied.
We continued to scrutinize and put each other under microscopes even outside the school's walls. Once on a ski trip during school vacation week, as I stood in line for the lift with a group of 5 girlfriends, one of them asked me about the grade I received on my most recent math test. When I reluctantly announced to her that my score was an 83%, her eyes dropped to the snow flurries drifting toward the ground as she mumbled "oh, I guess that's good." And the truth is, I was not even angry with her for that response, but rather it reinforced my own shame at receiving a score lower than 90.
The Regina George living inside my own head belittling me for being the "stupid failure" that I was.
And the thing is, I cannot blame myself, or any of those individuals in particular for perpetuating this vicious cycle, but rather the way society at large defines "success." It is not just the grades that we strive for, but rather the promise that those letters and numbers represent: the promise that those numbers will land you into a prestigious college, which is advertised as the surefire path to a fancy title, a lifetime of financial security, and societal respect and admiration. Hopefully, we outgrow this mindset once we actually enter these colleges and are exposed to a wide range of belief systems and life experiences both in and out of the classroom. And I haven't spoken or spent time with the majority of the old high school gang since graduation, but maybe some of them have developed a more nuanced way of viewing the world within the last six years.
However, the vision of success ingrained in our minds since utero is far too pervasive to ever fully shake off. Instead, people just develop new measures of success: what do you do? does your job require any kind of advanced knowledge or training? have you moved out of your parent's home?
While I cannot say that my mind is fully divorced from these unwritten rules, it is definitely separated with no plans of reconciliation. It started when I volunteered in a rural village in Costa Rica the summer before my senior year of high school and met other volunteers who valued making the world a better place and breaking free from their comfort zones. To this day, I allow my passions for service and travel to define my identity and how others perceive me. It continued in college when I met friends representing diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds who faced twice as many obstacles as I did to get there. To this day, I consider it a great achievement of mine to have a network friends from all walks of life because they inspire me to challenge myself and to think about societal challenges such as racism and poverty in new ways. It is still continuing as I build my career during year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA and discover the value of pursing passion rather than prestige.
There are times, of course, when I feel like a failure for still living at home when most of my friends have their own apartments, or taking nearly a year to find my first job. But then I remember, I can set my own bar for success. Don't get me wrong, I still want a career that will bring me financial stability and personal fulfillment as well as an apartment to call my own, but those will happen on my own terms, not because society will think better of me if I do have those things. After all, clothes go out of style, nobody remembers a grade they made on that oh-so-crucial chemistry exam that one time in high school, and many people don't rent their first apartments or stay at their first jobs for more than a year or two. These material milestone are fleeting. The lessons, memories, and relationships achieved from living a life of meaning and passion? Those last forever!
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