gratefulness and harvard

Gratefulness, among all spiritual and scientific pursuits, has been the supreme practice of peace in my life. Growing up was a paradoxical experience, simultaneously increasing my capacity to wonder about the future but also to understand those familial, socioeconomic, and psychopathological disadvantages I’ve dragged along. With this understanding, a growing depression lured my teenage self into a deepest well of self-pity that I worked hard to decorate with fictitious fantasies of confidence and superficial pursuits of success and pleasure. As the saying goes, I was a master of putting band-aids over the lacerations of my soul – until the sheer weight of plastic and cotton tore open the very wound it had tried to support. College was a horrible time to behold the moment I was faced with the true extent of decomposition that had occurred underneath the surface all along. I hate that it is better to be late than never… because it’s still late. At the same time, it IS better to be late than never. So much inefficiency, trial, and error went into digging through the dressings, each consecutive band-aid more saturated and rotten than the before, until I found the wound and sutured it shut with whispers of love, kindness, and gratefulness for those people and opportunities I do have. Since then, I’ve begun to see Harvard as less of a consolation prize for my suffering but rather a springboard to deeper joy and satisfaction in life.