The Rat Race

First of all, I guess we need to get one term straight: the rat race. What is that? It is basically a race where all the competitors are placed on hamster wheels and the faster they run the faster the wheel will go and the faster they will run even more. This is a really good example of explaining how our current society is as more people are becoming members of this world--if one person starts to do more and work harder than everyone else, everyone else will need to work at the same level of intensity or even harder to ensure that they are still in the game and are surviving. However, it is simply because we are too caught up in this rat race that we forget who we actually want to be and lose who we are.

As a Chinese girl, I understand and feel the competition. However, not completely--because I have not been in the actual public school system for one day of my primary and secondary education. But, I have heard of stories around me of my friends burning out from the system and students who are in the international community and still not knowing where they want to go. For example, there are tons of agencies out there in China where they will give students "guidance" and sometimes even do the whole application for the student for college, and those companies will tell the students the "ultimate formula to get into an Ivy League", which is something that sometimes may or may not work. However, it is because they are being thrown this formula and being thrown into this system of manipulative education and growth, they forget who they actually want to become and are simply lost in this race of who gets a higher ranking in a competition or who got into the more prestigious summer program.

Those students in the public schools are under even more pressure--their lives are dependent on test scores and the sole factor of how well they do in the education system, which leaves them with no space for self-expression. Well, technically, if they do display extremely outstanding talents and skill in one realm of knowledge or field, such as math or whichever other ones fit the criteria, they can get into college without taking the ultimate test of their lives, which is the national college entrance exam called the Gao Kao. The students don't even have time to ponder the question of who they want to be and what they want to do, they can only put their heads down and study for life.

I feel grateful that I am in the position where I am in right now, as I do have the time and energy to discover who I actually am and what I am actually passionate about. I do feel distanced from the rat race in this sense, as I actually know what I want to do and know how I want to do it, and I hope my uniqueness will empower and inspire more people to be unique and make this competition a competition of its essence, and not a competition to a standard.