The Beginning of Something Good

June 21st, 2012

As rising seniors, we are told that getting a job is not as simple as just being talented. We are scared into a mindset that if we don't employ a Russian mentality towards our studies and our future endeavors, we will fall short of completing our deeply rooted goals and expectations of life. It's a bit daunting to say the least.

But, as those who have made it through the combine of college and the job search process tell us, if you are committed to a goal and you work harder than is really necessary, getting a job and making a name for yourself in the world should fall into place.

From Raleigh to Philadelphia, the race to make good grades and get into college remains the same, as is the case for Matt and Malcolm, or M and M. One trying to be a leader in a boarding school he has only been at for one year, the other trying to be a leader in a school full of leaders that he has been in for his entire educational career.

Whether it was the attempt at or the execution of leadership that qualified us for the National Student Leadership Conference, which we both are attending currently. We both received a packet of information congratulating us on our accomplishment of being selected for this conference. And both of us knew nothing of how we were selected, who recommended us or how we even qualified.

We are not the top students at our school, and we are not the most involved students either, but according to someone, our drive to achieve success qualified us as 'leaders' in our own right. Which means we are doing something correctly, a small boost of confidence to an otherwise abundantly negative and stressful year.

Surprisingly, as M and M move through the motions of any sudden, close contact bringing together of a group of people who have never met each other before for an extended period of time which is NSLC, we are slowly but surely carving out our own position of leadership. We have become the unofficial leaders of leaders, which neither M had expected of this conference when we both traveled to American University to participate in NSLC, one from Raleigh, the other from Philly.

So, as the conference approaches the halfway mark, predictions of each other's futures and plans abound, as well as a feeling of dread for the time when we must part, at least for the time being, to return to our each individual lives.

Though M and M have only known of each other's existence in the world for five days, it was if fate dropped its hand down and placed together the perfect match of northern and southern preppy and hipster style and personalities to form the best dorm room in all of our nation's capital.

I will end this particular post today with a quote, some words of wisdom that resonate in and least one M of M and M. This will be something we try to keep going for each post.

Be Seeing You

"One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgments of value follow directly his wished for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments."
-Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents