If, If, If

I watched a bit of the Harvard Class Day events online a few days ago, streaming the speeches as I cleaned up my room and tried to figure out what to save and what to recycle. It's odd, in retrospect, to think about what could have happened if I had chosen to go to a big Ivy League school - my future would likely have been changed, and my networks would have been very different. Unlike so many of my friends here, I had no relationship to Williams, no knowledge of the Berkshires or even of the college's general location - when we first sketched out college locations for a road trip, we put Williams next to Boston.

And yet, I chose Williams, or rather, with its declarations of values, Williams chose me, and my life is changed.

Isn't that remarkable?

So many people in this world have so much of their futures written or swayed by the circumstances of their birth and the demographic trends of the countries they inherit. So many people will never travel across oceans, will never read such ancient works, will never have the chances that I have had and, to some extent, squandered. I know now, looking back, that I could have done much more at Williams - could have written the book I sketched out freshman year about the desires and beliefs of the "Obama Generation," could have spent an aggregated 20 hours more editing all of my essays (with a probable .1 GPA bump), could have, could have, could have.

But I'm happy with what I did here, and more importantly, with what I learned here. Williams taught me a huge number of incalculable things, many of which are hard to articulate, but I know that I'll be more effective and harder working at all of my future jobs because of it. I could have gone to another school, yes (assuming my admissions to Williams wasn't a lucky fluke), but I'm well-situated now to have the life that I want - to enjoy my work, to have enough income to live securely, and ultimately to become one of the many citizens that makes this country work.