Destiny G.
Photography by Aneesa Wermers
If you’re reading this, know that you are allowed to be human, to make mistakes, be flawed, feel emotion.
When was the last time you gave yourself some grace? When was the last time you told yourself it was okay to not achieve? When will you begin to start prioritizing your soul over your ambition?
The sound of my marimba ringtone woke me up that morning. It was my mother. A call at 6 am was never a good sign. Mom doesn’t wake up until 10 am at the earliest most days, especially a Friday morning. I let the ring act as my lullaby. I did not have time for this today.
Ringgggggg.
“Hello.” I said half-asleep.
“WHY ARE YOU NOT AWAKE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Mom, I’m sleeping my alarm is set for --”
“You should be awake, studying.”
“Mo--”
“And what is this I hear about a warning?”
I froze. Precalculus, the epitome of death and uselessness. Fuck.
“We do not do this, Destiny. This is not you. What are you doing? Are you hanging out too much? Why aren’t you studying? I am going to call your dorm parent. I have his number. How dare you? You are so selfish you know that. We agree to send you to this prep school you begged us to go to and you WASTE it.”
“I’m going to bring the grade up, Mom.”
“HAVE YOU EVEN MET WITH YOUR TEACHER?”
“Yes, he’s not --”
“Not what, Destiny! Ay dios, mio. I don’t even know you anymore. Go find my daughter, she’s been brainwashed by these white privileged fucks. FIX IT.”
I’ve always been the gifted child. From a young age, I was told that I was special, unlike my other siblings and similar poverty-stricken peers. For some reason, God chose me and I had a responsibility to showcase these gifts. For my Dominican family, this was, and continues to be, their only light of hope. Regardless of my older siblings' failed attempts to ‘do it’, the flame was planted in me, and there was no option for failure.
In high school, I was granted the opportunity to attend a private boarding school in middle of nowhere Massachusetts, a hood miracle if you will. Although I no longer lived with my family, the control they had over me, and my destiny, never ended. At 14 years old, I became responsible for a legacy. I pushed to attend the prestigious The Governor’s Academy to escape this familial pressure to succeed that lingered in my every action. However, this attempt to escape only heightened this pressure in my time there. Every bad grade, mistake, or lack of perfection acted as a personal attack to my family. How dare I sacrifice my future, their future, my future child's future?
So I didn’t.
I was relentless. The assumptions from my privileged white peers lied alongside my familial pressure. As one of three brown or black women in my grade, for many, I was one of the first people of color they had ever interacted with. The seclusion and ignorance of my peers led them to microaggress and stereotype me. To many of them, I was the fulfillment of a diversity quota, nothing more. I did not earn my spot into this selective institution, but rather, I was a statistic. I refused to lie at either set of that spectrum. I could not live up to their expectations nor could I give them the satisfaction of me leaving the school. No longer was I the gifted child that was known to be book-smart. I had to prove that I was gifted despite the color of my skin. This balance of ambition led to a toxic cycle of overworking myself to an abnormal amount.
Like many of the kids at Boston College, in high school, I assured myself I was the best applicant on paper. Balancing extracurriculars, multiple leadership roles, and school became my normal. I did not stop moving until 10 pm at night Monday through Friday. My normal was incessant ambition. I needed to prove them wrong. Where I go next, is not a solution (as I have yet to find that), but an affirmation, a speculation.
I am not villainizing ambition. Our society is undeniably driven by ambitious people. This inevitability lies in the danger to our souls. How can someone simultaneously be ambitious and be able to value their happiness away from this ambition. Truly, did it matter how amazing of an applicant I was to college or the fact that I got into a college? Does it matter that I am making an insane amount of money out of college or is ambition about making a livable wage? These questions are not to answer the purpose of life, but rather to point out that everything is painfully temporary. Life is fleeting. Our purpose in life is not ambition, but what we can gain from that ambition.
If you’re reading this, give yourself some grace. I promise you this is not a life or death situation and an error will not ruin your life forever. Allow yourself to accept these challenges and overcome the ambition that controls you so fervently. Prioritize your soul and feed it. Your happiness is not dependent on your success.
Destiny G., Boston College
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