I was joking the first time I called myself a sell-out. My usage of the term was co-opted from my older sister’s vocabulary; the first time I heard her say it, she spoke playfully, and also very earnestly. A sell-out, she called herself: someone who would go into the lucrative tech industry, helping turn the wheels of capitalism. It’s not that we are individually unethical, but we exist in a system that makes it hard to succeed ethically without, for lack of a better term, selling our souls. By this definition, every member of my family has sold their souls.

This term irks my mother — she thinks my sister and I are setting ourselves up for unhappiness, and also she works for Big Tech, so there’s likely some personal offense mixed in there. For a long time, the idea of eventually helping major corporations exploit private data and cheap labor seemed distant, a joke of no real consequence. But now I’m 18 years old, technology solidified as my career of choice, and it’s not a joke anymore to call myself a sell-out — I’m going to college to become one. “We become that which we most fear,” and all that. 

But it’s not just because of my computer science major. The definition of “sell-out” is the betrayal of one’s principles, and when I reflect on high school, I see very clearly where I betrayed myself. I sold my soul to the hypercompetitive grind culture of Silicon Valley, trading happiness for a resume. Many of the people who read this column are probably a little like me: This environment is all we have ever known. We don’t know how to recognize its unspoken toxicity; we can’t. We have nothing else to compare it to. In many cases — mine, at least — we eventually just start going to therapy.

So where do you go from there? I prefer to think of the “sell-out” in shades of gray: It’s hard to be ethical today, but it’s not too hard to be kind to yourself. I’m probably still going to end up working for some big tech corporation, but as I head into college and beyond, I don’t want to sell out my happiness anymore, letting my impressiveness define my worth. By finding the balance between real fulfillment and workplace hustle, I know I won’t. 

I love the rain. My core philosophy is simple: Raincoats are for the weak, puddles are meant to be jumped in and nothing beats the feeling of rain on your face. Growing up during the perennial drought gave me a deeper appreciation for how magical rainy days really are, so since I was little, I’ve treasured them.

Lately, though, I’ve been feeling existential because I’m graduating, I’m getting older and I only have the summer before I leave for college. So, when a late-season storm passed through the Bay Area, it felt like a gift, one last chance to revisit one of my childhood favorite activities. 

But as I stood outside at 11:38 p.m., I couldn’t stop wondering if this would be the last time I’d get to experience the true California rainy day experience. By 11:42, the resulting pit in my stomach drew more of my attention than the rain. And as I sat down to finally write my senior column a little past midnight, here’s what I realized: I’d been so busy agonizing over lasts during the past few months that I’d forgotten to experience the present. I’d been so preoccupied ensuring these memories would be infallible that I’d forgotten to actually make them.

I know this isn’t a unique experience; whenever my friends and I discuss nebulous ideas of summer activities, there’s always the unspoken, “before we all leave.” And I understand why we think this way: like it or not, things are going to change come August, and to ignore that would be deluding ourselves. So we obsess over stockpiling memories as a way of bracing ourselves for it, because it’s one of few ways we can have some form of control. 

But this whole cycle is counterproductive; it’s not fun to constantly listen to the omnipresent countdown clock in my head. Honestly, releasing my expectations of what a memorable moment looks like is probably the first step toward enjoying them more. 

So, on that rainy night, I went outside again, and really felt the rain on my skin. Not because I owed myself a memory for later, but because I love the rain. 

And it’s not like it doesn’t rain in New York City, my home for the next four years. It actually rains more than it does here, but I’m still going to be that crazy Californian who gets irrationally happy when it rains, because that’s just who I am. 

I’m not one to believe in doppelgangers. But I may have to change that. During the dress rehearsal for my final choral concert, a little Indian girl hopped up on a platform and sang a belting solo. She had the same haircut as baby Kaavya, the same gait, the same aspiration to be like the big kids and the same height deficiency.

However, my fun size doppelganger and I aren’t quite the same. Because I’ve never had a solo, never even got close. I’ve tried out for nearly every one for nine years but here I am, at my final concert, solo-less.

And I get why. I’m next to nationally ranked singers and kids who’ve performed opera since elementary school. I, however, stepped away from choir and fell behind my prodigal friends. I always went for solos, and part of me always believes I’ll succeed.

To be clear, I’m a good singer. Not fantastic, not the best, but good. I’m the medium fish in a huge pond. And there’s always a bigger fish. There’s always the kid who goes to a better college or the person who is 2 inches taller than you; There’s always the student with the slightly better analysis of “Hamlet,” who gets the ever-elusive perfect physics scores.

It’s hard to recognize you will never be the best or second best, even when it’s obvious. I don’t love feeling like a minnow. It’s frustrating to admit my efforts will never cause the perfect result. But I’ve begun to believe the pond matters more than my size. I’ve tried plenty of clubs for my resume and ultimately, I dropped nearly all of them because they were so boring. I can only work toward being a big fish when it was interesting.

I’m trying to define success not as being at the pinnacle of the group, but finding new peaks to climb. I don’t think it’s worth it to invest time in trying to be the best because there’s always someone even better, even when it seems like there won’t be. 

And yes, I’ve been learning this all through high school, but when I saw my mini me sing, it really clicked. It mattered less she had a solo and more that she looked overjoyed to sing it. And I was happy to be in the masses, making stupid jokes with my friends, just another minnow in the pond.

Sitting anxiously in the Zoom waiting room, I gulped a glass of water to calm my nerves. Despite having three pages of notes chock full of possible college admission interview questions, I felt butterflies in my stomach. Camera on, mic on, professional smile plastered across my face, action! 

After awkwardly introducing myself to my interviewer, I had to “tell her about myself.” And I choked on my first word and panicked after the first sentence. 

While it seems to be the simplest question, I struggled to answer it. Should I talk about my extracurriculars? Should I joke about my personality? How am I to know what defines who I am? 

I ended up talking about my immigration experiences and the interview went fine. Nonetheless, the moment of panic I felt when trying to define myself made me realize the mistake I had been making for the last four years.  

I hustled through all of high school, without ever stopping to consider why I was doing what I was doing. While it sounds cliché, I did everything because I wanted to go to a prestigious university. I never took the time to discover who I was as a person. 

Freshman year, I immediately joined the Speech and Debate club under the advice of my parents. I joined the tennis team to showcase my athletic abilities. I filled my schedule with Advanced Placement classes without thinking about whether the subject truly interested me. I signed up to volunteer without reflecting on who I was hoping to help. 

While I certainly learned a lot from my experiences, I couldn’t piece the complete version of myself together. I couldn’t answer questions such as “how do you see yourself in five years?” with confidence, because I’d never thought that far. 

In the last 18 years, I never took the initiative to ask myself if I felt passionate about all the activities my parents signed me up for. It is the lack of introspection throughout my life that led me to the hesitation during the interview. 

While it is completely fine to be uncertain about the future, it is essential to understand that high school is a journey to discover yourself. In his book “Walden,” Philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said, “I wished to live deliberately, … not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Each of us should live our lives “deliberately” on our own path. Be active, be self-aware, and have fun in high school.