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<li>Agree with bitterness perceived in DarklingSun’s post. You don’t get sympathy for your troubles by demeaning the accomplishments of others :).</li>
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<li>Lemaitre1’s story is the most inspiring to me personally. It gives a full perspective and goes full circle, and is actually drastic - he (I’m assuming a he based on prejudice and stereotype) was actually <em>last</em> in his class and is now in his fifties and a doctor…and he changed because of one dream…that’s frickin’ incredible.</li>
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<p>But everyone’s story here is inspiring.</p>
<p>In response to MissPickwickian, I used to be much like you in Middle School/Freshman year (and earlier as well). Never learned how to be social as a child, was perpetually lonely, didn’t have true friends, no reciprocated romantic interests, etc. Changed my life around entirely sophomore year after a year-long miserable obsessive romantic pursuit predictably crashed and burned, decided I had enough and wanted to change the way I was once and for all.</p>
<p>Happiest and most exhilarating year of my life, sophomore year. I read up on texts (to be specific, David DeAngelo and Mystery - pick-up artists ;)) on how to properly cultivate romantic interests, etc. Took a lot of work, but everything in my life improved - literally everything. Stopped being addicted to virtual games (used to play games for 8+ hours every day, no joke, the minute I got home from school to well past midnight many days), built a social network, stopped being afraid to literally even look at girls or speak to them (I honestly could not <em>speak</em> to a girl before), and the utter novelty of it all made the year unbelievably thrilling to me.</p>
<p>Arguably fortunately/unfortunately, I stopped short of finishing my goal (one of the problems I’ve identified in my life - I start but never finish too much, must have something to do with the fact that I perceive life to be too short /tangent must stop so I can finish my original subject matter) and resumed pursuit of academic/extra-curricular matters. Junior year rolls by, I decide to join the Speech Team and work on my speaking skills. Horrific initially. It turned out I had a lisp when I spoke and no one could understand a word I said. I worked on it. Was one of two people to qualify for Nationals from my school this year. Hell, I even founded the first entirely student-run and student-formed organization in the history of my school.</p>
<p>By the time Junior year had rolled by, I had reached a point of social proficiency where I felt secure enough to not <em>need</em> constant social attention to maintain a state of contention or happiness, and consequently was capable of pursuing academic matters in the general entirety that I did. Joined the cross country team, first athletic thing I have ever done in my life (Asian-American, immigrant family, my background is not athletic in the slightest).</p>
<p>By Senior year (I’m graduating tomorrow), my stagnant progress in social matters has been noticeably detrimental to my general ability in that realm. I haven’t been paying <em>conscious attention</em> to each particular social interaction, and I have been getting somewhat worse because of it (this may seem strange to the “average” person, but learning to be social is like any other process - like speaking a language, if you grew up immersed in the act, it will come naturally to you. If you didn’t, you need to consciously and tediously work at it. I didn’t grow up in the act.).</p>
<p>However, if you were to see me now, there would be almost no resemblance whatsoever to my past self. I looked like a total social outcast back then, from appearances alone. I had constant thoughts of suicide, no friends, could not even speak to girls, and acted so weird one of my “friends” even reported me to the school for having disturbing thoughts and the school almost suspended me for being a safety risk.</p>
<p>Now, I’m the first kid in the history of my school and possibly my district to ever attend Harvard, I’m surrounded by a solid friend base and am known to I’m fairly certain every single student and staff-member/administrator in the school and numerous random people in the district (my mom gets random people at work who talk to her about me), I have absolutely no fear of public speech and am in fact better at it than the vast majority of the world, am in perfect shape and cardiovascularly more fit than the vast majority of America [won’t say the world, the third-world working class is probably far superior to me in physical terms], been laid at Harvard (during a summer school session between junior and senior year - I include this among my list of notable accomplishments because interestingly enough I owe almost everything in my life today, academic and otherwise, to my initial desire to attract girls), have had a wonderful [though crazy] long-term relationship with an incredibly intelligent and unique [though crazy] girl, have a nice internship at Argonne Ntl Lab. this summer, and so forth. /brag</p>
<p>Obviously, there are still remnants of my past misfit self (I’m still working on greater mastery of social relationships and so forth), but they are not significant save for one prominent problem that’s been bugging me lately. The absence of objective meaning in the world (read: absurdism) has been bothering me. I’ve placed all my chips on The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and I sure hope it doesn’t fail me, because if it does, I might just jump off a cliff despite my apparent being-on-top-of-the-world right now, because hell, nothing matters, not even getting into Harvard (sorry if this shatters anyone else’s dreams) :). This is from an atheistic viewpoint, and I desperately seem to require a logical argument that will persuade me to believe that life is “worth living”. This is not to say I am unhappy right now - the only unhappiness I have stems from this inability to determine a purpose to life as well as the likely initial spark that prompted this introspection - the inability to find another person who understands this particularly need of mine and can help me (read: in a romantic light, most likely).</p>
<p>And thus, that’s my perspective on the matter of change and progress. You can change quite truly almost <em>anything</em> about yourself, but don’t expect it to be by any means easy [it was, on the contrary, quite difficult and time-consuming], and don’t expect never to have regressions.</p>
<p>Cheerio! If I never speak here again, it’s because I jumped off a cliff. (And no, this is not a traditional cry for help - if it is a cry for help at all, it cries only for what is clearly requested - a logical argument that establishes the purpose behind life free of any biases, be those biases supernatural or evolutionary in nature. Understand this to be an existential crisis, though seemingly one more intellectually challenging to surmount than the typical. Chances are I won’t <em>actually</em> jump off a cliff, not at least until I’ve thoroughly explored the opportunities for philosophical inquiry afforded by Harvard and found a cliff suitable for the said purpose of jumping.)</p>
Also a Summer School program in the USA would seem great to me, but I can’t afford it.</p>