DON'T LET NUMBERS DEFINE YOU!

At 5:05am this morning, I woke up for work, rolling over to switch off my alarm and seeing the notification of an email from BOSTES. It's just a notification, the results aren't meant to be released for another few hours. So I open it and there are my marks:

Chemistry - 74 || Biology - 76 || Advanced English 78 || PDHPE 82 || General Maths 89

The hype about finding your marks out of your HSC is so over rated. I had originally made plans with a friend to record ourselves opening the email, to capture our face full of emotions, or to switch our phones off so we'd never have to open it. But over the last couple of weeks as we've waited patiently (and forgotten about) our marks, we realised that they mean nothing! Yes we will be ranked, all hoping for that 99.95 ATAR, but that's unrealistic. It's unrealistic that we'll all get into university, that we'll all get the ATAR we want, or even for us all to pass. People will fail, declined, ranked, because ultimately this is their path. Not getting the ATAR you want for your university degree doesn't mean that it's the end of the world! The brilliant thing about now-a-days is there are so many options that you can look into to get to where you want to be, just as long as you work hard enough. People aren't going to be talking about the rank you got at 18 when you're 20. Two years from now, you'll barely even remember what ATAR stands for (I honestly never knew ha). Don't let that rank put you below anyone! Everyone is equal, and don't surround yourself with anyone that doesn't make you a better and happier you! We all just need to take the pressure off the poor kids of the future suffocating themselves to be the best. They're not living! 

This train of thought brings me to the way numbers define you in the most significant ways over the last 10 years. Social media! People scroll through their Instagram and Twitter feeds everyday and find themselves seeing accounts with 746K followers, 80,000 likes per picture with 900 comments. At first we believe that these people are "cool", these people probable are pretty cool, but these numbers aren't what make you "cool". People have become obsessed with the idea of the more followers, friends, or likes you have the more successful and "cool" you are in life compared to those around you. So numbers don't need to define you! Look at why you're on social media and think about whether you're on it for the right reasons: to get more likes than a friend or to spread love! The internet brings a lot of negativity and obsession to people's lives, and because of that people are getting text messages saying "have you likes my insta photo yet?" on a regular basis. Stop suffocating yourself! Make memories with your friends and don't let the numbers define you!

And as my dear friend Hailey Devine says "Don't let numbers define how insanely cool you are"

Let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comments