Should We Strive to be Underachievers?

In the culmination of my academic achievements, I have not felt fulfillment from a single one. I take no joy in being part of the portion of students who are “exemplary.” In these recent years of living through a pandemic, I tried to spend my time well on introspection, and I have since felt a great urge to do things for myself although I’ve had a record of being what some would classify as an overachiever, which actually prevented me from doing what the things I truly dreamt of.

Growing up, I always aimed high and thrived off of the validation I received at school. Nothing felt better than hearing adults say how mature and responsible I was, how impossible it was for them to think of my actual age. My peak was undoubtedly entering the enrichment program. Having people congratulate me on my MAP test scores was the equivalent of being given the highest honor I could receive at the time.

As I entered sixth grade, I relaxed a little bit. I made honor roll and high honor roll the entire year, but I didn’t seek validation as much as I did before. Seventh grade rolled around, and I maintained those good grades, but I seemed to rebel a little bit. I was too outspoken, which didn’t always translate well for my teachers, though in retrospect I completely understand why. However, I did start getting praise for my writing from teachers. That same fearless voice that didn’t always do well vocally in class, was apparently really good in writing. I remember being satisfied with who I was and how strongly I felt about things, but most importantly I loved how I used to do everything for myself and my satisfaction. Seventh grade was also the year I got rejected from NJHS, which ended up changing everything for me.

In the eighth grade, I made it my point to excel in school and extracurricular activities in every way possible. I packed my schedule from 7:30 a.m to 7:00 p.m. This continued into ninth grade. I remember I often fell asleep in my soccer uniform after coming home from practice at 7:00 p.m. because of how exhausted I was. My plate was full, and I kept adding to it. I reapplied to NJHS and even became the society’s historian. I was tired, but it felt good to have that image of myself. However, I could not tell you one thing I did in those two years that was somewhat related to any of my passions.

When the pandemic started, I fell into a rabbit hole of getting to know myself after losing touch with the girl I was. I remember some friends even mentioned that they had noticed me return to old hobbies and passions. In isolation I had all this time to do things for myself and for my future, and the responsibilities that seemed to once be my entire life would fall low on my list of priorities. However, as the world reemerged and we started going back to school in person in the school year of 2021-2022, I realized things couldn’t stay the way they were and that I would soon have to go back to old ways. I had to touch base with the person I was before the pandemic as people were asking me about her and where that girl had gone. Nothing made me feel worse than that. So, as I entered the eleventh grade, I filled my plate back up with the same nonsense that never left me satisfied, although nothing was the same anymore as I had this sense of self that I had lost so many years back.

Skip forward to twelfth grade, I have many titles to my name and accomplishments that people say I should be proud of, yet I have no satisfaction in. In my years as an “overachiever,” I have found that it is useless to have all these acclaims to your name if they are not something you take joy and pride in. If I could go back in time and tell my ninth grade self something, I would tell her to not fall in the trap that AST’s high-achieving culture lays out for her. I would tell her that she has so much potential, intelligence, and such a desire to create and work hard, and that if she were to apply that to school, clubs, and societies she has no interest in, she would feel like she had let some of those talents go down the drain. Despite how much fun highschool has been for me, I can’t deny the regret I feel when I think of this. Having not wasted my time with these things that have no worth to me, I would have started passion projects that would have grown into bigger things, and I would have left bigger legacies than anything I'm doing now. I have spread myself thin with activities, because that’s what people told me they expected of students like me. And even so, I always feel underappreciated. I find it to be a cheap card to be pulled when educators say things like, “...You’re a full IB student, though, you should be pushing yourself to do more,” or “You are a member of this society, you are supposed to be the best of the best students, I expect more from students like you.” Some people will jump to say comments like these when you slip up for the first time ever. These comments make me wonder what people would expect from me if I were what they considered an “underachiever.” Those so-considered “underachievers” are not only free from these expectations, but they get to prove people wrong all while doing things for themselves and no one else.

I have found that my friends who are not as committed to things at school like being a full IB student, a member of countless societies, or an honor roll student have done and are doing bigger things than all of my titles and achievements accumulated. I have a friend who is president of a big organization, Voces de Esperanza, and she spends her time actually making meaningful impacts on people’s lives, something that she is so passionate about. I have another friend who is also president of a big organization, Fridays For Future Honduras, and she has an impressive resume filled with activities and conferences that she has attended. She’s even writing her own book! These friends have inspired me to go out and do something along the lines of what they’re doing but with one of my passions, which I’m more than sure that I can achieve. There’s just one little problem: I’ve overcommitted to things at school. So, even though some people might have considered them “underachievers” at school and considered myself an “overachiever,” they have done much more amazing things in their lives than I have. I am green with envy, embarrassingly jealous that they are free of the chains that weigh so heavy on me.

That is why, I always encourage people to do what they will feel fulfilled doing...despite the pressures to “achieve” that others might put upon them.