3 Words Got Me Into Harvard
Hi there
I'm John fish and for the past five years both explicitly and implicitly I've been following this three word mantra
that has helped me to not only get into Harvard but be named by the
administration as the member of my class who most embodies the ideals in the mission of the college. The mantra is this:
Just keep playing. And there's really two ways in which I think about it.
So on the one hand just keep playing is a reminder to myself
to continually foster a sense of play in everything that I do and I learned this from my dad who taught me to
treat tests like they're game day, and what this does is it creates a positive sense of pressure getting rid of any negative pressure.
What I mean by this is that the pressure to succeed comes not from the the fear of failure
but rather because it's just so fun to do well.
And this positive pressure has encouraged me to do things that I might never have done before because there is no fear of failure
associated with it. So I started YouTube because it was just fun for me. I treated it like a game.
I I didn't, you know think that it blow up or anything
I just wanted to have fun making videos. The same thing with science fair, right?
It was fun for me to do these projects.
There was no reason, you know, I was scared of losing at Regionals or Nationals or whatever.
It's just fun to succeed and fun to make cool projects.
So everything that I do in life
everything that I've done in life I try and treat like a game and in that way there is no
fear of failure because losing is a part of every game. It's inevitable. It's going to happen eventually.
And that brings me to the second interpretation of the mantra
which is that just like in a game, when you lose you don't quit, you
just keep playing. If you lose a game of soccer you show up at the next one.
And so I learned this kind of value of persistence and and the the acceptance of failure
from a grade five and six teacher who taught me to see this adversity and failure as
learning opportunities because that's what they are. The discomfort that failure provides you is a mechanism for future growth
nothing more and so in this way this mantra of just keep playing has kind of impacted
everything that I do in life.
I try and approach every little aspect of my life as a game and when I fail on it
I try and just keep playing so, you know, this attitude has kind of helped me to to persist in my studies
but but also to take courses that are fun for me, right? And to, you know,
make room for extracurriculars and and keep going in them and keep working hard and eventually find success after facing overwhelming
failure in them. So I want to end this short video with a Buddhist saying that I heard recently
that really resonates with me, it goes like this:
Act always as if the fate of the universe depended on what you did
while laughing at yourself for thinking that anything you do makes any difference at all
So I challenge you as I challenge myself to accept this kind of dichotomy.
Be intentional in your life, but be playful with it.
Always strive to be better but only because you enjoy the process.
Know that everything that you do is of utmost importance, and yet nothing you do really matters at all. And maybe most importantly
always work hard at the things which bring you enjoyment and
remember why you're doing it.
It's because it's fun. It's because it's a game and see where creating that positive pressure to succeed
relative to that negative pressure that so many people feel will take you, because I promise you it can do some pretty incredible things.
I'm John fish. Thanks for watching this short video. Please subscribe if you want to see more and I'll see you shortly.
