By Noah Shifter,
Co-Editor-In-Chief
Warm and loving people can’t be sharply competent. Nerds can’t be athletes. You can’t be in ASB and Rampage.
Wrong, wrong and wrong! Some of my favorite people are warm and intimidatingly smart. I know three other people who succeed in ASB and Rampage, and our talented students can definitely do well in academics and athletics. Oftentimes, in search of a stable identity, we unnecessarily pigeonhole ourselves into a narrow and tight definition of self.
“Oh, I’m just an AP kid.” “I’m only a football player.” “I’m more of an artist.”
In reality, all of us are capable of far more complex and interesting characters than that. If AP Literature has taught me anything, it’s that you are way too complex to be reduced down to any one label.
As an elementary-schooler, I decided that I was going to be the smart kid, and that was it. I spent my free time reading and classrooms felt like my territory. Then, I began to grow. I started enjoying playing viola and my new identity as a musician gained importance in my life. Then I learned a love of debate at Oak Avenue’s JSA. I stepped into the world of high-school ASB as Freshman Class President, and moved on from there to work as Club Commissioner. I began working out, starting with the one—seriously, one—pushup I could do and laboriously, gloriously made my way to a 190-pound bench press. I joined the Rampage you’re reading as a Staff Writer, and slowly climbed the ranks to become Co-Editor-in-Chief. Through all of this, I still work hard in my studies. I’m still that kid who raises his hand for every question in class.
I guarded myself against an identity crisis by adopting more than five identities (after all, they can’t all have a crisis at once), and I’ve truly enjoyed every moment living out each of them.
Well, that’s what I want to say. But they can all have a crisis at once. Living this life is also a matter of constantly questioning my own capacities. Even as I write this, the combined burden of working ASB Homecoming week, guiding Rampage publishing and staying afloat in five AP classes weighs heavy on my shoulders. There are times when I feel like I really can do everything, but those times are heavily tempered by near-constant doubt of my own abilities. I live life wondering if I’ll make it through without disappointing myself and everybody who believes in me. When I go home every day, I collapse on my bed and can’t focus for hours because the day left me with so little energy.
What is the right path? Living a super-overachieving life always wondering if you can hold it together, or constantly thinking you could have been greater and done more? I struggle between those alternatives, but I keep choosing to do too much instead of risking doing too little.
Maybe I’m afraid of missing out on what could’ve been. Maybe I’m just arrogant and overestimate my own abilities.
Either way, I’m not going to stop. Until I figure out what balance means, I will keep living life at the next level.