At the end of Senior year, it seemed as if everyone was figuring out the next four to six years of their life, right off the bat, in a single semester of high school. Of course, being a teenager who had a an average gpa of 2.0 or lower, I found myself only seeing bland, mundane or worst of all, simple yearly lifestyles to come after high school. I was easily looking for the comfortable way out, without going to a university that carried a name and with it a high debt rate.
I had many circles of friends, and luckily I was blessed with a gift of being a chameleon and being able to blend in and code-switch through the groups to fit in well and disguise my true self. I was a character to my friends, and still am today. Someone who would take initiative, and fill up with passion when the time felt right to do so.
I had my group of friends who took part in alternative lifestyle choices, watched movies and youtube videos, had an aversion to the police, loved music, the creative arts, and bonding with each other like family. This was the group I primarily fit with, for I was at the same stature when it came to academics. Since academics pretty much influences your first few years of post high school, and it seemed none of us liked our public education, I blended in best with this audience and mindset.
Then it came to my other circle of friends who were so well academically inclined. They were going everyday to school not to get by, but to achieve. They would go for the highest grade, and GPA, to get into the college that would have the best influence on a great career path. This was inspiring, but for me it felt like a fish who sees a monkey climb a tree very well. As a fish, I could not find the skills, to get out of the water, let alone to all of a sudden climb and swing through trees like these inspiring monkeys were.
They respected me, however. We had grown up with each other, and they knew me better than I knew myself at times. During the summer between Sophomore and Junior year of highschool, my father suffered from a heart attack, then a stroke. He couldn’t walk, speak a full sentence, remember my name, or control his thoughts and actions. It was as if I had lost a parent. This group of friends who were so highly respected in my mind showed the same respect back to me, even though they were the monkeys soaring through the trees, and I was the fish watching from the lake below.
As I watched them swing into amazing universities and on the paths to great paying and successful jobs, I was left with what I could make. I became a journalist at Youth Radio International, which was my first job ever, and luckily, a great and suitable one for my passionate and expressive self. I became a professional journalist, and wrote pieces on the things that meant the world to me, and that I thought should be known through this world of ours. I found myself among the circle of friends that meant a lot to me, that got jobs as well that they loved even without a college degree, but wound up in a certain cycle.
Once you’re out of high school, not going to college, and you find yourself a job, it’s easy to fall into this cycle. You work a job, maybe you like it, maybe you hate it, you get a paycheck on a certain day, and then find yourself using that check on things that lead to high consumerism, victims of the “Hedonic Treadmill”. The more you buy, ironically, the more you want and the less you feel content.
I started growing aware of this the more and more weeks went by. My checks would go to substances, clothes, accessories, nicotine products, my motorcycle; and you know what, it felt satisfying in the moment, but there was a thirst for something much bigger than feeling “content” with this simple, consuming mindset.
This is when I first met and flirted with the idea of travelling abroad, and seeing the world out there. A middle class teenager just trying to get by after high school can have problems when trying to realize there is a whole damn world out there, wanting to be explored.
This is what lead me to Carpe Diem Education. This program at first I was cynical towards. A bunch of American teenagers, trying to “make a difference”, by going to developing countries and maybe “building a school” or “teaching english to poor pitiful children,” these ideas I had in my head from programs I found in my school that had high schoolers do these things like treat a culture or nation paternalistically. I didn’t have time for that. The more I read into it though, the more the things I heard about I related to. I wanted to go out into this world, explore, enjoy and perhaps even endure a culture. See what it’s like out of this cycle of endlessly trying to be comfortable and content with what I had in front of me. To honestly understand what it means to have a purpose for myself. Not just to society, my friends, and some boss, or a newspaper.
I was tired of comparing myself to others, and now out here in India, amongst amazing, beautifully minded individuals that I could relate to through successes and struggles, I’m comparing myself now, out here on the other side of the planet, to myself back home. Many things await me back there. Negativity can rise easily when coming back from such a positive journey, wanting the journey’s energy and vibes to come back with you. The thing is, is that it’s possible, it’s just very well hidden.
All of my life, I have been told what I’m supposed to do. I give much thanks to this amazing journey that my fantastic parents could provide. Of course the Carpe Diem program as well, with it’s inspiring Oversee Educators. Being able to push me out into this world. The fellow adventurers I’m experiencing India with in such a positive way, it’s truly something amazing. I think that when I get back home, instead of knowing what I’m SUPPOSED to do, as a middle-class American teenager that never went to college, I’ll be lucky enough to know the difference and know what I WANT to do.
There are no limits for someone who’s all about breaking them.
