This is Life

By Richard Kim / Winter 2025

March 24, 2022, 8:52 PM: A lot of factors were decided this month. I heard back from most of the colleges I applied to. I got rejected from every school which was what I was expecting. It seems that all I expect of myself is disappointment.

The previous passage is an entry from my journal that I wrote in my last year of high school. The last phrase that I wrote, “all I expect of myself is disappointment”, encapsulates the way I thought of myself for all of my teenage years. The feeling of worthlessness, and the constant reminder that no matter how much I do, I will never be enough, all started when I was 10 years old.

I remember vividly the first time I received my lowest grade on a test. It was in math class and at the top, circled in bright red, was 25%. This moment left a deep scar internally to the point that I can still feel the paralysis that my 10 year old self felt back then even to this day. Seeing that I was behind in school, my mom had her friend tutor me in math and english. Eventually I caught up. My scores started to gradually improve, and I received compliments from my mom and tutor for my hard work. I was proud of myself. However, this feeling was short-lived. Eventually, I was given workbooks to do that were above my grade level so that I could get ahead of my classmates. I lost leisure and had to decline requests from my friends who wanted me to play outside with them. I remember one instance where I was doing long division problems in the car instead of looking out the window and admiring the trees and nature. My tutor was also not the nicest or patient. She was a textbook definition of a “tiger mom”, a term that describes a strict parent that pushes their child for achievement. Some of our sessions left me crying, and made me anxious and fearful for the next one. On those days, I felt like a failure and that something about me was lacking.

One day, I had enough of this, and left home to spend the whole day with my friends. I knew I had class that day, but I completely ignored the time my mom told me to come back home by. As evening came, my friends went home while I remained outside and knew that I missed class. While I was mindlessly walking around my neighborhood, imagining the consequences I will have to face for skipping class, I saw my mom’s car in the distance, cruising around to look for me. I got scared and ran away into the woods and hid at a campsite that me and my friends made.

10 weeks ago, I would have told you I was running away from my strict tutor and having to do math and english workbooks. Looking at this story deeply, I see what I was truly running away from: the rat race. The rat race is something that forces people to chase wealth and power. It’s a force that permeates through society, puts people against each other or unrealistic standards, and makes people feel like failures. I was thrusted into this race at 10 years old when I got back my low math score, and has been the main cause for my struggle through my teenage years.

I remember entering my first day of high school and the teacher telling the class to write a message for future versions of ourselves. All I can remember from the message that I wrote was “I hope you got into UCLA or Caltech”, colleges that I wanted to get into at the time because they have good STEM programs. That’s what I thought I wanted, but society and the rat race told me otherwise. In my culture, there is an importance placed on education and hard work. I often heard that people who got into these famous and prestigious schools ended up having successful lives and careers that bring in lots of money. I wanted that life myself, and I started creating a plan to get me to that goal. I planned out my courses for the next four years of high school, most of it containing AP classes so that I can get a 4.0+ GPA. I started considering extracurriculars not for the sake of enjoying them, but to put them on my application when I apply to college. My mom signed me up for tutors that will get me to a perfect SAT score.

As I went through high school and followed the plan that I made freshman year, I started to fail to meet the requirements to get into my “dream” schools. I got a B in English my first year. Once I started to take AP classes, I couldn’t keep up with other students, often getting terrible exam scores and thinking I wasn’t good enough. I tried out for the pole vault team and didn't make the team, feeding myself more with thoughts of inadequacy about myself. I remember going into my AP European History class where I had panic attacks because the teacher would call on people to answer questions in front of the class. I was always anxious and scared. What if I don’t know the question when I get called on and everyone realizes I am a failure? This feeling seeped into my relationships and pulled me apart from people. I grew distant from friends who were doing much better than me. I often felt like I didn’t deserve to hangout with them because deep down, I felt like I wasn’t good enough for them. I grew farther away from my parents who looked at me with worried faces as I spoke to them less at dinner and spent more time alone in my room with my books and doing homework. My soul started to fade as I typically stayed up till 2 AM studying and waking up 4 hours later for school. I went to an SAT academy where I did practice tests all day long where I often got average scores around 1100 to 1200 range which wasn’t enough for UCLA or Caltech.

To escape my crumbling reality, I escaped to the internet and online video games. I distracted myself with YouTube videos that gave me artificial enjoyment rather than seeking authentic enjoyment in the physical world. Instead of focusing on my studies, I worked hard to rank up in online video games since It was the only way that I could feel like a winner. When I watched the animation, “‘Are You Lost In The World Like Me?’”, I saw my past self in the crowd of people, fully engulfed in my phone and the digital world. I’m more conscious about my technology usage now, but I see my friends on their phones when we go out, instead of being present. We distract ourselves with memes, cat videos, and content that tell us what we need to obtain in order to have a good life, constantly reminding us of the race we’re all in.

In the end, I graduated high school with a decent GPA which, looking back at it now, was pretty good, but the person I was back then thought of it as a failure. Zooming out, this problem wasn’t affecting me, but also to teens across the country. Throughout my time in high school, I thought the people who were winning, the ones achieving straight A’s, doing multiple extracurriculars and projects, getting perfect test results, were happy, but I was wrong. When I was studying at the SAT academy, I saw kids who were getting near perfect scores on their tests and many of them were disappointed in what they got. In the article, “Amid youth mental health crisis, teens ask for a kinder college admissions process”, Matthew Baker, a high school senior states, “‘You need to have a really good SAT score, you need to have really good grades, and you need to be excellent in pretty much every field that you’re in, ...So that’s something that I always think about. I’m like, Am I good enough to be attending these schools?’” (Brumer). My struggles and how I felt was not something only I was going through. It was affecting all high schoolers. We are all sold an idea where our lives would magically be better if we get accepted into a certain school, and the ones who don’t, are labeled as losers and will have to live a life as a failure. Noam Chomsky takes this idea further in the documentary, “Requiem for an American Dream”, where he states that “the idea is to try to control everyone to turn the whole society into the perfect system. The perfect system would be a society based on a dyad, a pair. The pair is us and our television set or maybe now us and the Internet — this represents what the proper life would be, what kind of gadgets we should have. And we spend our time and effort gaining those things which we don’t need and we don’t want. But that’s the measure of a decent life.” (Chomsky). Back in high school, I was being controlled in a way to pursue good grades so that I could get into a good school that society deemed prestigious, when in reality, it wasn't something that I needed. And once I didn’t achieve this pursuit, it only made me hate myself and made others hate themselves as well.

III

After high school, I decided to enroll at my local community college. It was the only place I could go to after getting rejected from every school I applied to. I was not alone. Most of my friends didn’t get into the schools they wanted so they enrolled in community college as well. I thought people would see me as a failure for going to community college, but it seemed like a lot of the people around me were applauding my decision. “You made a good choice”, they often said. I think it was because my brother also went to community college, transferred, and found a successful job that made my family and relatives more open to the idea about my choice. To add onto that, I believe people are realizing the system, that being college admissions, is falling students. One such aspect of this system is legacy admissions. Even if you had the perfect application, you would still be rejected over a less qualified applicant simply because his or her parents were alumni to the school. Thankfully, it’s changing. “As of 2025, only 24% of four-year colleges consider legacy status in admissions, a sharp decrease from 49% in 2015. Following the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions, 92 colleges ceased considering legacy status, marking an 18% decrease from 2022. Currently, only 11% of public colleges (62 institutions) consider legacy status, whereas 30% of private colleges (358 institutions) maintain the practice.” (Rim). Obviously, this system is unfair and more people are starting to realize this. Back then, myself and many others were not failures, but the system failed us by not allowing an equal playing field for all applicants. I wish I could tell my younger self this. It definitely would have taken the burden of failure off my shoulders, knowing that my failure wasn't entirely my fault.

Although my family was happy with my decision to go to community college, I was not. The feeling of failure still lingered in me, and it grew a flame for me to focus on my studies at community college, knowing that I had a second chance to go to university. However, this spiraled me back into the rat race. As soon as high school was over, I started taking classes over the summer before school started. I maxed out every semester with 20+ units, constantly at my desk doing homework or studying. Every grade or test score that was below my expectation gave me the same sense of failure that I felt in high school. I stopped going to drawing classes to focus on school and increasing my GPA. I read books on how to get better grades and be more productive even though I never followed the author's advice. And to be honest, I don’t remember any of the tips that I got from those books. I woke up at 4 AM to go run since that's what I saw “successful” people do on the internet even though I hated running. I fully believed in the “rags to riches” story in that if I worked hard, I too would reach money and my desires. But Howard Zinn, in his book, A People’s History of the United States, criticizes the “rags to riches” story as being “true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control” (Zinn). This quote is eye opening in that not only will I never reach riches, but it makes me question what we’re working hard for. I do believe that we should work hard, but it’s important to know what we’re truly chasing. If it’s working hard towards the things that the rat race tells us we need, we’ll constantly feel unfulfilled. But, if we know what we truly want, and work hard towards that and reach it, I know that we will find fulfillment.

In the end, I left community college as a winner. I got the perfect GPA, I was a member of our school’s engineering club, went to engineering competitions, and participated in student government. A wave of relief washed over me as I saw my acceptance to UCSD and other UC schools, places that rejected me 2 years prior. I made it. I got to the finish line. Yet, I felt unfulfilled afterwards.

The first few weeks at UCSD, the place where I thought would make me happier now that I’m at a good school, was short lived. Once week 3 started, I had a midterm or project due every week that constantly kept me going. I had to quit my part time job because I didn’t have time to take care of myself while juggling my classes and studies. I was back in the rat race again. This time, the goal was different. To get a top-tier internship, or nowadays, an internship anywhere, even at a place that might not be ethical. The feeling of failure is catching up to me once again. I see my peers getting internships, research positions, and great exam scores. I can’t help but think that I’m falling behind. I’m losing the race once again.

April 14, 2023 12:18 AM: Although life is agonizing, it is also beautiful. On that hike at Torrey Pines after getting rejected from all my schools and feeling like a complete failure, the sound of the waves, the warmth of the sun, and the cool breeze of the ocean waves comforted me.

This journal entry was a reflection I wrote after the events from my previous entry. After hearing back from the colleges I applied to and uncertain about my future, my mom forced me to go to the Torrey Pines State Beach with her and go hiking. I don’t know if she did it intentionally after knowing that my dreams were crushed, but she pushed me to go outside and hopefully brighten my mood. It really helped. For just a few hours, I was able to immerse myself in nature and forget about my problems. I remember being mesmerized watching the sun melt into the horizon as our hike came to a close. For some reason, going on that hike made me a lot happier. I can recount more moments like these. When I ran away into the woods when I was younger to skip tutoring, I found some form of peace by being surrounded by the trees and watching the sun cast a bright glow on the lush green forest. Having that moment gave me the strength to go back home peacefully and accept any punishment I had to face. More recently, I find peace by going on long runs up mountains and stopping at the top to admire my city and the world. The view is breathtaking. I wondered why it felt so nice to be in nature as I recall these moments of my life. I can see that it offered me a way out of the rat race by focusing my senses to the present moment and to see what life truly is.

In his speech, “This is Water”, David Foster Wallace starts the speech with a story of two young fish meeting an older fish. The older fish says to them, “‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’” (Wallace). The first time I read this speech, I didn’t quite get what he meant by this. Reading this now and connecting it to my life, I finally understand what this was saying. There’s a lot of cars and trucks that zoom past me, rushing to beat the morning traffic, while I’m at the top of the mountains. I, like the older fish, often wonder if they catch a glimpse of what I see. Or if they are in their own worlds, a world that is fueled by the rat race that blinds them from the beauty of life. The young fish doesn’t recognize the water around him, the very thing that gives him life. Similarly, the rat race and our constant strive for success that we believe is life, takes us away from seeing what actually matters: the unadulterated life without the rat race, the job that we hate, or superficial goals. Even recognizing and simply being aware of our breathing, the very essence that keeps us alive that we often ignore, offers freedom away from what society tells us we should do. This form of mindfulness allows us to shift our attention to the present, away from the future that makes us anxious and the past that haunts us.

When I came to UCSD, I reconnected with a friend from high school. This friend was the star student, and the one who I looked up to. As we reminisced about our days in high school, he said, “I wished I didn’t work so hard in high school. I feel like I missed out on life". At first, I was confused. His hard work was what allowed him to get into UCSD. But, getting into UCSD was a meaningless dream, a dream given to us by the rat race, not from ourselves. And the feeling of failure that we get when we don’t reach these dreams are not our feelings, but feelings that the rat race poisons us with. When I asked my friend if he had been applying to internships, he hadn’t applied to any. His reason being that he wanted to slow down and to live and enjoy his life. Now that I understand his perspective, I also want to live my life, away from the rat race and the life that society deems worthy. It’s easy for me to say this now, but I know I will forget the true version of life as I continue my journey after UCSD. To bring me back to reality, I can ask myself, “Am I simply going through the motions, or am I truly living life?”

Work Cited

Brumer, Delilah. “Amid Youth Mental Health Crisis, Teens Ask for a Kinder College Admissions Process.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 7 Mar. 2023, www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-07/youth-mental-health-crisis-college-admissi ons-process-stresses-out-young-people.

Wallace, David. This Is Water. Little, Brown and Company. April 14, 2009.

Rim, Christopher. “Legacy Admissions Comes under Fire Again-What You Need to Know.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 19 Feb. 2025, www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2025/02/19/legacy-admissions-comes-under-fire-a gain-what-you-need-to-know/.

Requiem For The American Dream. Directed by Kelly Nyks, Peter D. Hutchison, Jared P. Scott. PF Pictures, Naked City Films, 2015.

Moby & The Void Pacific Choir. “‘Are You Lost In The World Like Me’”. YouTube, uploaded by Moby, 18 October 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VASywEuqFd8

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper & Row; HarperCollins. 1980