Juicy

This is one of those stories like the notorious Biggie Smalls talks about in his song Juicy where he says that this goes out to all the teachers that told me I’ve never amount to nothing. My teachers weren’t that harsh, but this story kind a has that same flavor where I really got a lot of motivation from people taking perceived opportunities away from me that I thought I deserved and that actually having a more potent effect than me just initially getting my way. The story begins in 10th grade where I had applied for a pretty intense scholarship to be able to travel abroad. Another of my classmates, a pretty black girl, was much less interested and we had even talked openly before-hand about how she had not really tried very hard on the application. I had well thought through paragraphs about visiting my ancestral lands and learning about my personal family history. She wanted to visit Paris and make-out with a french painter. So I was surprised when it came down to the two of us to be selected for this travel abroad program. I thought, wow, I have a great chance of getting this and had probably gotten my hopes up way too high. When they gave her the trip I was pretty devastated, but it did light a strange fire underneath me to be able to take this into my own hands and be the one who made sure I got to see what i wanted. When i had talked with one of the teachers who was part of the group deciding which student would get the opportunity, they told me plainly that the other student was chosen because she was female and black, and that it looked better for them to hand her the trip even though i was more qualified. It became clear to me then that people in power want things to look a certain way, they often don’t care about ethics or matters of principle. It was a vivid lesson that there was no way I’d see what i wanted in life, and HOW i wanted to see it, by requesting to go to different countries hoping that i would be chosen. I would learn that if i want anything in life, i had to go get it, not wait for it to come to me. It was a valuable lesson to be that master of my own fate, early on. Of course, this is very anecdotal evidence of my claim that not getting what you want can be more powerful than being handed opportunities, but that girl still lives in my hometown and has not traveled to any new countries since her free trip to Paris. I got to six new countries just this year. What you don’t get can motivate you to get what you want later on, and on your terms. Looking back, the kids that got life handed to them now find themselves lost. They don’t know how to discipline themselves or sacrifice, they expect to be given extra opportunities. They got free trips abroad and now don’t know how to take what they want. They continue to wait for something to happen to them, reacting. They are the victims of momentum and their own entitlements and i am beyond grateful that i didn’t get that scholarship.