Nirja,

This is the part where I tell you not to worry. This is the part where I tell you that everything is worth it in the end. This is the part where I tell you something profound about growing up. 

But what if I tell you that you’re more put together than I am right now? What if I tell you that I’ve never questioned my self-worth more than in the five months since I got into Harvard? What if I tell you that I have nothing to share with you but a confusing feeling of emptiness?

Right now, you are so full of purpose and discipline. You have a set of concrete social and academic goals and a concrete plan to achieve them. 

Right now, I am sitting here having achieved many of those goals, but I feel unaccomplished, like a mere pawn in the game of life. I don’t feel unique; I feel mundane. Haven’t I spent the past four years just crossing tasks off a cookie-cutter list?

I know this is not the most exciting thing to hear, but I want to tell you how I genuinely feel: lost. 

The one piece of advice I would give to you is this: stop waiting to feel accomplished. Because I think that’s part of why I feel how I feel. Don’t go through high school telling yourself you will be happy after the next invitation, the next acceptance letter. With nothing to your name but a laptop and PUSD Zoom account, you are deserving of happiness already. Accomplishment is a state of mind, and it’s time you and I start being in it. 

– Nirj(ahhhhhhh)