When you get into state office, you take this test called “Insights”. This tells you your top five qualities and at the top of mine was ACHIEVER. Now for some people this may have seemed like a really good thing. I got my work done and I never backed down to a challenge or new opportunity. What I did not realize until this year is that achiever can turn really toxic, really fast.
I am not sure if I can really blame my need to be over involved in everything on something specific. Yes, I did fear that maybe I would not get into a good college if my extracurriculars did not look as good as they could. Maybe, I was afraid of letting down the people around me who love and support me. The truth was that I was afraid of being seen as a failure.
So, I dove into EVERY SINGLE THING I could get ahold of. Vice President of National Honor Society, Secretary of Service Learning, Council Member of several clubs, President of my FFA chapter, then State Officer. Not to mention, I could not stand the sight of anything less than an A on my transcripts. This is not to brag but to tell you why this ended up tearing away the one thing that I really needed in my life. Relationships
Quite frankly, I could not keep a steady friendship for the life of me. It was never because those friendships ended poorly or that we got into fights. It was simply because my friendships only existed because of the things I was involved in. As soon as that specific activity ended, usually the friendship did as well. I never prioritized friends because I was too busy looking for my next big move towards success. Looking back on it now, I wish I had stayed in contact with more of these people as we continued to grow into the people we are now.
What I am really trying to say is that, you should reach your goals but do not sacrifice people and other things along the way. Valedictorian, President, or any other title is not much fun if you are going at it alone. Drown yourself in the things that make you happy not just the things that might look good from the outside. High school ends, the friendships do not have to.
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