A personal perspective on success

From my perspective, my peers seem to know exactly what they want to do in the future. They seem so passionate about a topic or career and have a clear illustration of their ideal success in their careers. 

As I look at them and try to imagine my future, I realize I cannot visualize what the future holds for me; all I can see is the stress piling up. From my point of view, everything beyond this school year seems unknown. I want to make my parents proud. I want to live a comfortable life. But is that my dream? 

Is that really how I define success?

As a sophomore in high school, I don’t have a dream college or passion I want to pursue. It is not that I feel incapable of acquiring a well-paying job or getting into a high-standard college, I just don’t know that I would be content with it. Through hard work and dedication, I can achieve society’s standard goals and objectives, but I often wonder if that is truly what I want. 

I know I will grow to enjoy a career field and that my hard work would not go futile. Yet, doing so feels a lifetime away. Though some jobs are interesting to me, I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life doing them.  

I noticed that I am not alone in experiencing this thought process. 

“We are just so stuck in the present, [that] it is hard to think about the future,” Coppell High School sophomore Ananya Anupindi said. “I cannot see myself doing anything beyond sitting at my desk [studying] and worrying about my SAT, I don’t see myself at a dream college or in a dream job. I just see myself stuck in school.”

Talking about this struggle with others and finding that they relate to my perspective helped me realize that success is not limited to just a career or passion. It can be as simple as achieving a mindset or fulfilling an emotion.  

I realized that success in my eyes meant not having regrets. I want my future to reflect the diligence I put towards hard work and make sure no hardship is wasted. In the end, I want to utilize my past to secure my future, making every struggle worth it. 

This showed me that the path to success does not have to be clear to be achievable. 

Though I lack a vision of my future, it should not stop me from staying determined even as unknown obstacles come my way. In the future, my views on what I want to pursue will change but I know that I will never regret pushing my limits while being a student.

Every high school student, myself included, needs to realize that nothing is set in stone and that it is OK to consider different environments and find what’s best for ourselves. Students having limited experiences often cause them to be unsure of the future. It is normal to develop different opinions over time and gravitate towards varying fields as we explore careers.

Success is far from a straight path, everyone has their own goals and struggles with their own problems. I realized that I need to focus on the present and let the future build itself. Learning more about myself as I work hard towards an undefined future while making sure I won’t have any regrets about my past. I’ll use my current vague sketch of the future as a motivator rather than discouragement and with time, achieve my perfect success.