The good and the bad, the smart and the dumb, the self-conscious and the oblivious

I remember walking into English knowing that I was the smartest student in there by far. And for a while, I had nothing but success.

Then I fell for the trap.

As the year progressed, I became more and more fed up with the class’s mediocrity every day. Most of second semester so far has just been me openly speaking out against the teacher, which in turn makes the other students feel even more inferior than they really are.

Today I got into trouble for “defiance.” And it wasn’t coincidence.

Now that I got into trouble for what I’ve been doing for most of the year, I slowly begin to realize what my environment has done to me.

The people around me are often very smart, very talented, and very open. But at the same time, we so often forget that there are other people around us who don’t share these same qualities. In the process, we belittle these people and do what we can to make the “non-honors” students feel like complete idiots.

For the longest time ever, many non-honors students have commented on how ridiculous we make them feel. I’ve sympathized with them in the past, but this is the first time I’ve seen what I’ve TRULY done, what I’ve gotten myself into.

Moral of the story? We often indulge in our own abilities and thoughts so much that we forget about the person sitting next to us. At all times, we must remain conscious of what we do and how it affects others.

Yeah I know, I’m a hypocrite. I probably won’t be able to live up to this immediately. But life is an ongoing struggle.