When I was in high school I put a lot of effort into resume building activities. I was very concerned with getting into the best college I could, so I threw myself into many activities, clubs, and study sessions. Looking back, I have no idea how I kept up the frantic pace that I set for myself. At one point I was going to school from 7:45-3:10, had debate practice from 3:10-4:30, then did three hours of martial arts practice, went home, ate dinner, and studied until 11:00 or midnight. Then every weekend I either went to a debate or martial arts tournament. I enjoyed what I was doing, but I have to admit that a large portion of my activities were geared towards getting into college.
Once in college I studied hard, joined clubs, and did activities, again to add to my resume. I knew that I wanted to go to graduate school and wanted to stand apart from my competitors. Again, I had a great time in college, but I was so focused on building my resume for the next step that I didn’t give myself much space to explore. For instance, I stopped taking language classes because I didn’t do as well in them as other classes and I didn’t want to lower my GPA.
A lot of people in my generation suffer from the same problem. I think of it as building branches. Consider yourself as a tree. Other people see the leaves and branches, so we spend a lot of time growing and tending to them. Unfortunately, the most important part to our longevity, the roots and trunk, we don’t spend nearly so much time on. After building out so many branches, our tops are so full but our roots so shallow that it is easy to topple over. We emerge into the real world where our resumes don’t count for much. This creates an identity crisis, and since there isn’t anything to build toward, no best college, grad school, or job, we get frustrated.
If you never take the time to explore, take risks, and discover your interests then you can’t build your roots. The pressure to yield to the traditional curriculum and create the best-looking applications for college and grad school makes it difficult to build those roots because root-building activities aren’t praised. It is up to us to take the time to be curious and explore to build our roots, our base. There’s nothing wrong with having nice-looking branches, but don’t forget that first thing’s first.
What are your roots, your base? Are you grounded in your life, or in danger or toppling over if the wind starts to blow?
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It’s so sad that we are hard-wired from an early age to only get the highest grades, rather than do something we enjoy. I know from an early age I was pushed to do a variety of different activities, from baseball, to music lessons, to language lessons. I think I am grounded because I had more diverse experiences when I was a child.
I am a Research Assistant for Professor Leonard Birdsong, of Barry University School of Law located in Orlando, Florida. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog – please pay his blog a visit: http://birdsongslaw.com.
Thanks!