Escaping the prison of perfection ...

Natalie Schmidt graduated from high school in 2015. I didn’t teach her, but I knew her from her reputation around campus as one of the golden children who did everything right. She earned A’s in all her classes, impressed her teachers and coaches with her endlessly positive attitude, and seemed to have a perpetual smile plastered on her face.

I didn’t know Natalie well, but I have known many like her. And she is certainly not the first golden child who experienced some rough waters when she left high school. When the external validations disappear, when quite suddenly there isn’t a test to ace, an award to win, or a teacher to impress, it can leave a golden child drifting and uncertain. When Esther Greenwood, the surrogate character for Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar, found herself in the same situation, she said she felt like “a racehorse without racetracks.” Because when you have placed much of your self-worth on the approval of others, there may be a moment coming when, looking at yourself in the mirror, you are forced to come to terms with the startling discovery that you really don’t know who you are.

Natalie writes about this in her post. “In the words of Simon & Garfunkel,” she said, “I’m finally ‘taking time to treat [my] friendly neighbors honestly; I’ve just been fakin’ it... not really makin’ it.’ I’m trying to smash the image of perfection I spent my high school years creating, in the hope that it might prevent others like me from valuing themselves solely by their activities and accomplishments rather than who they are.”

After graduation, Natalie spent a year at Johns Hopkins before transferring to Columbia University. She’s currently in her senior year studying Industrial Engineering, but she is planning on going to law school next fall. She loves the high-energy lifestyle New York City has to offer, but usually finds herself missing the trees and birds and skies. Consequently, she spends most of her vacations back home in San Diego, hiking and camping with her friends.

- C.H.

Like you, my dear sixteen-year-old self, I too am just starting my senior year—except this time, I’m sitting in New York City, one year away from my college degree rather than my high school diploma. In most ways, I’m just like you: in our same brown eyes, I still see the anticipation of a new school year; in our legs, I again see the swagger of a seasoned senior striding past nervous freshmen; in our smile, I see that same sarcastic wit, that same laughter.

In some ways, you actually intimidate me. You get A+’s and take nearly every AP class available. I work hard in my classes too, but I got a 39% on not one, but two finals last fall. You’re a nine-time varsity athlete in four different sports. I still run now and then, but have a bum knee and the hip joints of a ninety-five-year-old. You are always the happy, darling daughter, the engaged student, the friend who never stops giggling. I’ve fallen asleep studying in the library, but struggle to get any rest at night as my anxieties plague my brain.

That’s right, dearest high school self: I fell asleep in the library. In public. In front of other people.

That terrifies you, doesn’t it? Couldn’t be possible. That’s not a part of our brand, you say. Natalie Schmidt does everything, and does it well. Sure, we used to fall asleep face first in our AP U.S. History textbook all the time. But that was at home, where no one else saw we weren’t doing everything perfectly.

Let me assuage your fears: we are not a complete failure. Sometime soon you’ll think you are, but you’re wrong.

Right now, you think you have everything under control. You feel the pressure to succeed placed on you, whether by Parker’s college prep nature, your parents’ expectations, or heck, even your own neuroticism. But you’ve gotten their system down pat: You’ve jumped through every single hoop they’ve placed in front of you, with (the illusion of) complete ease. You’ve heard that aphorism, “Perfect is the enemy of the good,” but you’ve decided it doesn’t apply to you. You believe you really are the happy, brainy, well-behaved, athletic girl who always does everything right. And if something somehow goes wrong, you ignore it with ruthless dexterity. When you look in the mirror, you see not a girl with feelings and weaknesses, but rather the walking resume carefully cultivated to reflect exactly what they—whoever “they” are—think you should be. You see only what they see. You’ve become an outside observer of your own soul.

But this image we so artfully crafted won’t last. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not perfect. Actually, I don’t hate to say it: I wish we had learned much earlier. But if we had, would it have changed anything? Would we still have gone to the college everyone else thought we should attend? Probably. But maybe when we finally left for Baltimore, we wouldn’t struggle to find someone to give us a standard of perfection to meet. Maybe we wouldn’t have felt like a failure when we realized we didn’t want to be what they told us to be. Maybe we wouldn’t have spiraled into a deep depression—or at least we might have found the strength to admit we were struggling.

You might not believe me. You might not think that we would have to transfer schools, or that we could be depressed. But it’s true. And even once you admit it to yourself, you’ll still find it so hard to confess to anyone else. You’ll still have that instinct to protect your reputation at home and at Parker, even years after you graduate.

I don’t say this to scare you. On the contrary, I’m giving you something to look forward to: the day you get through all that crap and cut yourself some damn slack. So many wonderful things happen when you start listening to yourself. You’ll have to go back and examine those instances you once ignored: the things you thought, felt, and experienced that didn’t fit into the image you put on display.

You’ll remember how much you loved editing BEMA, and realize you’ve never felt more alive letting yourself scream, “YAWP!” from mountaintops. You’ll stay up late debating Kant and studying legal theories and case opinions for fun—so you’ll abandon your pragmatic medical ambitions for a quixotic dream of a Supreme Court seat. You’ll be unsure of yourself, yes, but you’ll learn it’s ok to relax and let loose, it’s alright to be unsure, that the uncertainty of the future is what makes life worth living.

I hesitate to tell you to do things differently than I did; we won’t be who we are today if you change anything. But you could make it a bit easier. You could love yourself for who you are, not the activities you write on your Common App; you could learn you are a human being, not a human doing. You could stop being so damn uptight. You could realize no one has anything completely figured out—not your friend who got into five Ivy League schools, not the prom queen, not your teachers or parents or adults in general. And maybe, perhaps most importantly, you could be more honest about your own imperfection, so others who feel the same pressures you do can learn from your example and give themselves a break too.

Perfection defined by anyone else is not worth striving for. What is worth working for, however, is you: learning what brings you joy, what you value, what you can give to this world. Everyone always tells you to be yourself. But that’s easier said than done. First you have to meet yourself, your true self. And I guarantee, I’ll be overjoyed to finally meet you too.

All my love,

Your happily imperfect future self