Ithaca, New York.

You’ve all seen that video by Angela Duckworth, right? The TED talk where she talks about the biggest predictor of success not being IQ, good looks, health, or even talent--but Grit. That’s what this photo reminds me of. I’ll explain later, but for now, keep that in the back of your mind. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, here it is:

While I’m definitely not a professional photographer, I'm quite the keeper of memories. I feel like that’s what the essence of a photograph is: a snapshot of honesty that can espouse many versions of the truth, based on its human viewers. Kind of an oxymoron.

We’re deeply emotional creatures whether we like to admit it or not. The act of even looking into the past for sentiment’s sake is illogical. Sure, maybe to predict trends, but just for the sake of it? I’m not sure. It may at times give us the brief shimmerings of dopamine, but it's swiftly followed by sadness of that memory being behind us.

That’s kind of what this picture makes me feel. It was taken in Ithaca, New York in 2017.

I wasn’t the typical excellent student in high school. My parent’s dream of an academic whiz child getting into Harvard didn’t actualize itself when I graduated. I was a good student, not great. I guess compared to my Asian cohort, I was lackluster. I got a few A’s and mostly B’s, but no honor society, building houses in Guatemala, “Captain-of” anything, or “President of” anything. I made up for my poor student resume by front-loading AP courses into my schedule that consumed my life. I didn’t really put my best foot forward in high school. I put a decent foot forward, took some notes, and studied for tests, but I seldom sat down and tried to understand what I was learning. Have you ever spent hours studying and not grasped anything? That’s what I did for 4 years. It’s because my motivations were aimless. It was to get an A or to avoid a tongue-lashing from parents, but it was never to acquire knowledge in its purest form: by asking questions. What was the most frustrating was that every student around me was motivated by the same things, yet they boasted high test scores, while I was struggling to make a B in AP Biology even after 7+ hours-a-night of studying.

When you grow up in an immigrant household, you’re the torchbearer after your parents. You have this intense responsibility on your shoulders to carry that torch towards better academic and economic prosperity, for the sake of family pride. It’s like cognitive dissonance. Immigrant parents from India tend to be risk-averse, prioritizing stability, and certainty. But they ‘took a risk’ to leave the comfort and stability of their communities to provide us a better standard of living--they’d like to think that the 6,000-mile trek to culture shock and uncertainty was well worth it. So you can imagine why getting rejected by nearly 85% of the colleges I applied to upon graduation, was the biggest disappointment to them.

When I attended one of the 3 colleges I was accepted to, I wanted to keep my head low and push the gas pedal. I wanted out. I felt like I was out of my element and I was in a constant battle with my ego. “I don’t belong here. I can do way better than this, I’m smarter than most of the kids I have talked to here” was what I constantly felt.

But I was quickly reminded, that everyone makes choices and their choices are presented to them by the decisions they make.

Some students did better than me in high school and chose to attend this school. Some students put in the same amount of effort as I did, and this was their dream school. Some students didn’t go to good high schools and were grateful to even get a higher education. If I wanted to change the course of my life, I needed to make choices. I was privileged to attend a good public high school in a great district. I was privileged to even access Advanced Placement courses.

When I was in high school I made choices based on the decisions and options that were presented to me. In college, I decided to make different choices.

I sat in the front rows of every class, read chapters ahead before every session, and took notes. I came prepared with questions and attended as many office hours as I could. I learned so much in those two years than in 4 years of high school because I asked questions with the intention of understanding. I ended up attaining a 3.9 college GPA after two years.

In May of 2015, I got an email that told me that I had gotten into Cornell Unversity.

And you know what felt awesome about that email? I worked so hard to get in, that I impressed myself. Not my parents, not my community, but I truly impressed myself. I had such a sense of self-efficacy that I had never felt before, that I realized, huh, is this what Angela Duckworth was talking about? Grit is described as perseverance in the pursuit of long term goals. “Not just for the week, not just for the month. But for years,” Duckworth explained.

This picture was taken on campus at Cornell one evening after leaving the ILR (industrial labor relations) library after a night of studying with my best friend (still my BFF to this day). It was my final year, and I spent many nights like this, walking back to my apartment from the library in snippy freezing weather. The skies were always so beautiful during the wintertime. I probably have 20 of these types of pictures in my camera roll.

This photo reminds me of why I miss Ithaca. Not just because of its natural beauty, but because of what it represents for me.

There was zero editing done or needed for this photo.