We All Peak In High School

Anyone who knows me knows that student council and leadership consume(d) my life (they still kind of consume my life). Being student body president, I attended "required" monthly presidents meetings where all of the student body presidents in Vegas would meet at one of the high schools in town about everything and anything student council. I put the quotes around "required" because I would have gone to those meetings whether we had to or not. I looked forward to them every single month! They were one time I could see some of my closest friends all together at once, and we got to talk about leadership. Does life even get better than that?

We all became great friends very quickly. In my group of friends, there was this ongoing joke between the presidents that we all had peaked in high school.

"We've already become presidents of our schools! It must all be downhill from here."

As lighthearted as this joke was, it quickly became a real fear for many of us, myself included. In every college application, every resume, every interview, I had the words "student body president" to give me that extra boost. For four years, I identified myself by the clubs I was in, the positions I held, the speeches I gave, the assemblies I planned, and of the amount of first place medals my mom has hanging in our living room (yes that's a real thing). It started to hit me that as soon as I gave my last speech in my cap and gown, I wouldn't be able to identify as any of those things anymore. I would go back to being just a regular 18 year old. And I couldn't stand the idea of that.

Because of this cloud of fear over my head that I would never amount to anything more than what I did in high school, I joined every darn club my schedule would allow for when I went to college. If you read my previous post, you'll know that that ended terribly. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I realized I needed to stop freaking out over peaking in high school, not because I was so sure that I hadn't peaked in high school, but because I was so sure that I had peaked in high school. In fact, we all peak in high school. Every one of us.

"High school is a time where you can start to discover who you are." 

-every cliche teen film 

It's true, though, to some extent. Whether you joined clubs or not, high school is a time where you start to do and say things that simply make sense to you. You accomplish things you never thought you would accomplish. You achieve things that you'll never be able to achieve again later in life. I personally peaked in high school when I became student body president. My friend peaked in high school when he raised $24,000 for a charity. Another friend peaked in high school when he received a full ride academic scholarship to his dream school. Another friend peaked in high school when she won her soccer tournament. I don't say we peaked in high school because we have these accomplishments under our belts that we will never surpass, or that we'll never amount to anything more than these great feats. We peaked in high school because we did these great things that we only could have accomplished in high school. Everyone does this. We all do things, big or small, that we are so proud of, that we will never be able to recreate in the real world. We all peak in high school in one way or another.

This all being said, it is completely normal to want to continue doing great things beyond high school. I'm definitely not endorsing the idea that just because you were valedictorian or star athlete or whatever, that you don't need to continue pushing yourself to do your best after high school. It's so important to remember that as long as you have goals for yourself, and you're continuing to be a better person, you don't need to have a fear of "peaking in high school." You're likely going to do things and accomplish things that are very different, but still important. Becoming a "real adult" is an accomplishment in itself. So don't trip, chocolate chip. If you focus on putting good in the world, your life will be a roller coaster that only goes up. 

 Above is the side by side photos of when I first won my election for student body president (left), to my last official day of my term (right).



Here's something to make you laugh. The picture on the left is with my ginger twin, Taylor Rees. Prior to taking this photo, we were both crying our eyes out because we had just concluded our very last student council conference. Quote from Taylor:
"They make me cry on stage and then they make me give a speech. Classic Ginger."


Thank you to all of my NASC friends, especially HJ and T Rees. Together we'll get through our quarter life crises one panic attack at a time.