"You Can Do Anything But NOT Everything" - David Allen

My perfectionist nature and the need for all-round achievements were perhaps best recognized and brought to a head in my last two years of high school. The dreaded perfect applications began and all I could see was the recognition I believed I deserved for all this time and effort I dedicated to extracurricular activities. As my chemistry teacher once said during the commotion of it all, "Prefect, perfect, there is only the slightest of differences."

To me, this mantra embodied the ideal I held the position of prefect to be. I thought if I became a prefect I would finally be this perfect person, the person I so desperately wanted to be. I would finally be applauded for giving up so much of my social life, for selling my sanity to hours of relentless dance classes, study and track practices. And this attitude, that it was all about what you did, not the way you went about life, was the common idea shared by my year level as a cohort. For most this didn't have a massive effect, but for those of us who already felt we were stretched to our limit, doing everything we could - not gaining the prefect position and the rejection this brought was a cruel blow that provided a sting I personally couldn't comprehend. What more could have I done? I was clueless, dumbfounded … how could all this effort not be enough? I gave up every hour of every day? I became sour and closed off, I congratulated my peers and publicly accepted their success but I couldn’t help but feel I had been short-changed. That weekend I recall going for a long run to clear my head. I never timed it but when I re-drove the route I ran it was over 27km. I just kept running until it didn’t seem to matter anymore, until the rejection felt both numb and insignificant, and until I felt like just ‘a person.’ Not ‘Hannah’ the allrounder, runner, dancer all A’s student, and should-have-been prefect.

It is not until I look back that I realize how destructive such objective driven goals were. It is only now that I realize in fact the girl whom we elected as Head Girl wasn’t fancy, extraordinarily talented or special, she didn’t even do half as many extracurricular activities as most of us I did. Instead, Anna had a heart of gold, she was a plain Jane, extremely compassionate, as down to earth as you could be, and that’s exactly why she was great. She had life figured out, she knew how to form relationships with people and make them feel valued. And, like every great leader, she knew how to eliminate divisions, there was no hierarchy with Anna, one always felt equal and encouraged in her presence.

I continued to face disappointments, at what seemed at the time, a mini-life crisis. Missing out on getting the all-rounder award in year 12 when I thought I deserved it so very much. Missing out on passing my final ballet exam by a few marks, and missing out on getting a youth mark award in my final year. Then there were smaller rejections too. I missed out on getting rides places, I wasn’t invited to all the parties (which I probably wouldn't have attended anyway), but I felt cut off. I wasn't asked what my New Year plans were and so I sat drinking one glass of wine alone with my family. Again, I didn’t mind, but I desperately wanted to feel apart of the group for once, to have that reassurance that life - this crazy busy life - and everything I was putting into it was paying off. I realized I had become the nice girl that was always too busy for plans and so the world had stopped asking… I was doing everything I could to be the headliner yet it only made me invisible. normality it seemed required mediocracy and I didn't want to accept that.

I think when I look back at it, the overachieving, extra work, the self-made goals, and the extremely detailed plans to succeed lead me to be slightly unapproachable and hence I had a very limited social group of close friends. I put on this persona that made me look extremely happy and full of achievements. But these things are only paperweights compared to the anchorage of meaningful human relationships.