My Most Important Lesson?

By Ben Heine

Even with my heavy coursework this year, I don't think I really learned much that I'm going to use later in life. Calculus will come in handy for majors that I'm considering and physics is still a marvel to me, but those aren't really "life." This year pushed my emotional self to a new maturity level by finally opening my eyes to how to how the mysterious connection between all people transcends all physical object.

I would treasure my clarinet more than the players I played with. I would love my trophies more than my fellow competitors. That mindset of advancing at all cost has gotten me to where I am now but it will not be able to launch me any further. Somehow this year, during the times of weakness and tenderness, I realized that those little stories of how the physical world doesn't matter are quite true.

The Last Lecture comes to mind. That video came out when I was in 9th grade, and I thought the anecdote about the car and the kid was nice, but ultimately, a story. Who would really done that? When my shelf of trophies dating back to middle school came crashing down in ninth grade, I was extremely upset to the point where I cried a bit. To me at the time, the trophy encapsulates the joys of competitions. Breaking another trophy, this time a large, second place one, at state, I felt no remorse. I had fun getting it and realized that a trophy is not a Horcrux containing the journey.

I finally leveled up.

-runiteking1

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