Experience

No, We Are Not Defined By Achievements

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A lot has changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, not always for the worse though. To give a couple of examples, in my workplace we have been welcoming a new baby almost every month; a few friends have been making bold career changes, either switching job roles or moving out of state, and sometimes even to another country. In my case, during the lonely days of the lockdown, I started to think deep thoughts about my life. One night when tossing and turning, I decided that there was no better time than now to get over my deep feeling of being out of place and to begin with, I would pursue my long-held desire of getting an MBA.

Hence, despite a full-time professional job plus a close-to-full-time job of assisting my young children with their online classes, I managed to take the GMAT and TOEFL tests, work on the essays, and fill out the applications to apply for the MBA programs from four schools. By the way, if you ask me, I have only good words to say about this experience, because it has helped me to figure out my goals and pushed me to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the audacity to do.

Have my efforts paid off? As it turned out, I was not invited to interview with only one of the schools—not much of a surprise because the program didn’t fit me well anyway. As to the other three schools I interviewed with, I got an offer from one school, a rejection from another, and then my second rejection from the last school, putting an end to my journey of the MBA application after five months since that sleepless night.

Honestly, I have nothing to complain about—though I have only gotten one offer, being from the best program on my list, this offer allows me to feel good about myself and to tell the world what a wonderful person I am. Just then an idea struck me: what if I had gotten no admission offers at all? Would I still believe in my wonderfulness no matter what, or would I feel inferior compared to those who have been admitted? I’m not quite sure. What I know is that my anxiety would increase, that I would feel embarrassed if friends inquired about it, and that I would think perhaps something was intrinsically wrong with me.

After learning about all this, a friend advised, “I ask you not to judge yourself by your achievements.” I know it’s an excellent piece of advice, but is there anyone in this world whose self-confidence is not affected by external factors?

It brings to mind an old friend, who, in order to move to Silicon Valley, flew there many times for interviews. He applied for most of the big and medium-sized software companies in the area, and interviewed with some of them multiple times, whereas his friends who went about job hunting at the same time were easily landing multiple offers. One rejection after another, that was what he had gotten. I don’t know how he dealt with it. In fact, he never complained, and if you asked him, he would be happy to share his insights about the interview process, that he had gained from his many firsthand experiences. Perhaps it was his poor English-speaking skills that had held him up. Eventually after searching for more than a year, he got an offer from one of the best employers in the world. He worked there for several years, and then went back to his home country to start his own business. I admire this friend for how he took his failures lightheartedly and did not allow them to have a material impact on his self-image, no less than for the startup he has built.

However, this is not what I learned from school—not only was I taught by my teachers that we as individuals are defined by our successes, but also the many delights I had after hard-earned successes at school proved themselves to be the most worthwhile in life. I remember how proud I was when giving the middle school graduation speech after getting the first place in every single exam I had taken during those three years, and how pleased my father was when he received praise by his new social contacts who had heard his daughter’s name from their children. At the time when I went to school, academic achievement was the only criterion for measuring students’ performance, and accordingly my focus was to keep the academic lead I had established amongst my peers. While this contributed to my success, being so focused on competition and losing sight of the big picture, I suffered from increasing anxiety day by day as opposed to enjoying the learning process. Moreover, I had become such a sullen person to the point that I couldn’t truly enjoy anything—even achieving success didn’t fill my heart with much joy. One day at a festival, I came across a group of people playing hand drums and dancing to the music in high spirits. I was astonished by their great vitality, and at the same time sad to realize that that feeling of being on top of the world was something I didn’t know of, neither did I have the capacity for.

With this episode recalled from my school days, it occurs to me that there is a deeper meaning in “not to judge yourself by your achievements,” other than the obvious interpretation that failure is the steppingstone to success, as exemplified by my friend’s experience with job hunting. If you think about it, is there absolutely nothing else that matters except our successes and failures? What about life experiences: the places we have been to, the thoughts we have had, the relationships we have developed? What about conduct and temperament and the capacity for empathy? What about the values we uphold? I don’t have a complete list of the variables that play a fundamental role in our lives, but I know the habit of focusing on personal achievement, which I established from childhood, has been interfering with my perception of life, and to live life to its fullest, I must let go of this competitive mindset.

As I went through college, entered the workforce, and started a family, I began to see a bigger world and a wider variety of life philosophies, and realized that achievement in its traditional definition is not what everyone is pursuing. What should I aim for then? I believe the answer will emerge by itself, as I read, reflect, converse and live my life. I’ve learned that we work, travel, exercise, and raise kids because they are worth doing in themselves, not because of the result that we can achieve by doing these activities. I’ve learned to appreciate the small things that happen every day—they are what weave the texture of our lives. And I’m still learning to truly appreciate the wonderfulness in ordinary lives and to make a deeper connection with those that I have been encountered with, the life of my own being one of them.

With the realization that we are not defined by achievements, had I not gotten any admission offers from the MBA application, how would I have felt? Consciously I know, this is a one-off event and whether I have cut it or not couldn’t have suddenly made me a smarter or duller person than who I truly am. However, old habits are hard to break, and I would still have felt bad for a while. This is where I could borrow my friend’s shoulder to cry on, or let my emotion fully express itself through writing. After that, just like everybody else does, I would find ways to cope with the situation: maybe work on the underlying cause of the rejections and reapply next year, or build my own MBA curriculum from free online resources, or better yet, skip the learning altogether and jump right into the execution of my dream project. It would be a very different journey, but not necessarily less beautiful than the one I had planned when starting the MBA application.

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