Last year after one of my speeches at a high school, a father asked me,
“My daughter plays tennis, but it’s not doing anything for her. She’s just not any good at it. What should I tell her to do?”
I told him that as long as she was trying her best and enjoying tennis, he should back off and let her keep doing it.
The competition for admission to college does not mean that high school kids have to be great at everything they try. Colleges love a kid who sticks with something she enjoys even if she’s not bringing home trophies. One of the most charming essays I’ve ever read was written by a Collegewise student who admitted she was the slowest runner on the cross country team (she once fell so far behind the pack in a race that she got lost and had to stop and ask two elderly bird watchers for directions). It was impossible for any reader not to like her after reading that essay.
I’m not arguing in favor of embracing mediocrity here. There’s nothing charming about getting Cs in math because you just don’t work that hard or getting fired from your part time job because you were always late.
But even the world’s most successful people aren’t great at everything they do. There’s no reason any high school kid should feel pressured to be, either. Throw your effort into doing things you enjoy. Maximize the ones you’re good at. And as long as the rest are fun, productive and not covered by the criminal code, keep enjoying them, too.