People keep saying you can do whatever you put your mind to. In the past 16 years of my life, I have been told that my life and my decisions were up to me. I can not tell you how many of my friends have been told that someday they could be president. Even though this seems like a good way to inspire your children, isn’t this giving false hope?
There is a chain in life, and no matter how hard everyone tries, someone always has to be on the bottom. Throughout my three years in high school, I have taken multiple AP classes. This year my history teacher told us that he expects all of his students to receive a 3 or higher on the AP exam. Although this is something nice to hope for, it is unrealistic. With grades on a curve, kind of how life is, someone has to be at the bottom and get that disappointing one. No one wants it, but it’s inevitable.
So the reason for this blog is to point out that even though we as human beings have the ability to make things happen, sometimes it can be discouraging. I have always been the student that tries hard, but never at the top of the class. It caused me to wonder if I was doing something wrong. These ideas that say that we can make anything happen make the hard working successful people feel like there is nothing out of the ordinary about succeeding, while making the hard working less successful people feel like they are doing something wrong.
Let me know what you guys think. I always wonder if I am missing some angle to this that I have never thought about. Thanks for reading!
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
People who say you can do whatever you put your mind to don't really account for the amount of luck that is required in life. No matter how hard you plan or try to do something, at the end of the day, you need to be in the right place at the right time and know the right person to make it happen. Sure, you have the ability to do good things, but ability and actually doing them are completely different.
As for the AP Test, the number of people who get 1's and 5's are virtually non-existent. Therefore, your left with 2's, 3's, and 4's. If you go to a better than average school, you can't really fault him for expecting more of you.