ten years after graduation
ten years ago, I delivered the commencement speech for my high school. I attended a two-year residential unicorn-nerd school in North Carolina — which was, in many ways, more deeply formative than my four years of Columbia. at age seventeen, we took classes in game theory and linear algebra, stayed up until 3 am doing physics problem sets, had roommates and curfew and cleaning duties; studied and slept and breathed on the desert island that was our school (which used to be an old hospital). it was one of the best two years of my life.
I first reread the speech again early last year — in the middle of some very dark months — shortly after throwing myself onto this path full time. I read it out loud, to myself, on a random afternoon — and my own awkward, adolescent writing voice made me cry. I was going through a phase where everyday, I felt like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a mountain — only for it to fall back again. everyday, I woke up and felt flattened by the weight of my own anxiety, turmoil, and self-doubt.
sometimes you think you need to hear from your future, wiser self, but really, maybe you need to hear from your past self.
what did my eighteen year old self write a graduation speech about? she paid homage to one of her greatest, harshest, and most generous teachers at the school… Doubt.
“Looking back, we ask ourselves, how have we changed? What is it about these two years that will stay with us, even decades after we graduate? I don’t know that it will be the fancy formulas we learned or even the stellar study habits. Instead, let me you about one of the best teachers I have had at this school.
That teacher’s name… is Doubt. It is the dull gnawing in our stomachs when we feel fear. Whatever it may be: personal issues, social life, academics - we begin to worry that we simply can’t do it. We have reached our threshold, and we become hesitant even to try…”
well, ten years later, I’m ready to report back on a decade of continued, advanced studies with Doubt.
apparently, the school of life never ends — it only gets harder. (but also easier, because you become a better student…) except, now, there are no rules. there is no curriculum, except the one you write for yourself. you are your own teacher. you are your own student. the lessons are always ongoing. and the classroom is always here and now. you just have to figure out what the topics are, and what homework you’re supposed to be doing…
after graduating from Columbia, I realized how many things school cannot teach you — at least, not directly. the most valuable lessons in life are up to you — you have to seize them for yourself: how to live in this world. how to live at peace with your mind. how to trust yourself. how to way-find in the dark.
shortly after graduating college, I felt disillusioned with the gold paved path I was programmed — from a very young age — to seek, like a good Chinese pilgrim: you get all As, you get into a prestigious college, you get a stable, high paying job, you start climbing the ladder… (then you get married, have kids, retire, have grandkids, and end.)
and so, I followed that gold paved path up to graduation — to the place where all the roads split, into infinite tiny roads — some which were well-lit with street lamps, and full of people holding out snacks and energy drinks for you. others, so dark and overgrown with thorns that there is no path. and no living person in sight. you look into the dark woods and feel stupid for even wanting to go.
that’s the one I took. the path of no path. I walked until my legs were exhausted and my face was scratched. when I got very tired, I crawled — so slowly that it felt like I was barely moving.
I never once considered turning around. but for months, even years, day in and day out, I felt plagued with doubt — like a constant buzzing in my ear, vibrating down to the pit of my stomach. like a very bad bee.
4 years later, my college graduation from columbia
this is what my eighteen year old self wrote:
“No matter what, doubt always gives us a choice. To fill our heads with "No, I can't do this.” Or, “I won’t fit in.” … “I can never become better.” That is a choice.
To try, fall, and know that failure is only the dust on our shoulders and the scabs on our knees. That is also a choice.
Sometimes we forget that we are living in a sanctuary. Outside of our safe academic bubble, there is a world out there, both beautiful and hurting. We have been given the best of privileges, and the best of minds to surround us everyday. We have been given the tools to go forth to care for this world; whether it is in our future careers, or simply as people.
This school has show us that we are worth something; and at the same time, we make our worth in its entirety.”
when I read the speech again, I’m struck, soothed, and impressed by the wisdom of my 18 year old self — for naming the thing which would agonize me for the next ten years (and beyond). I’m moved by her purity, her romanticism, her idealism and hope for the world, and optimism about her place in it — (bordering on cheesy (hell, am I still like that? maybe so)).
I look at photos of myself at eighteen and twenty three years old — graduating from these two esteemed educational institutions, given the best that western education can offer — and I think: oh my dear kening… you have no idea what’s about to come next… and I wish I could prepare you better for it…
high school me painting. this photo was taken by marcela! thank you!
you will, over a long decade of existential turmoil, choose a life of romance over a life of safety. you will begin by being miserable in new york city — that city you loved so hard. you will be depleted and terribly unhappy at columbia. then, you will disappoint your employers. defy your family. obliterate your finances. descend into bad mental health. leave homes you’ve created with men you’ve loved. break your own heart many times over. doubt everything you’ve known — including your own voice. then leave everything behind and live like a vagabond, out of a suitcase. and often, you will feel very alone. alone in your head, alone in this world.
alone. yes. but never lost.
it was at that high school — with a certain english teacher I loved so deeply — that I first read, in ralph waldo emerson’s essay, “self reliance” — what it truly meant to make my worth in its entirety. I can choose how to think about each moment and each feeling — whether to make doubt into my worst enemy, or my ultimate teacher.
and it was at that high school, where I read a line of text by Emerson that would change my life.
“nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
I wrote my college admissions essay on that line.
and, now, ten years later, I’m still writing about it.
