This is an excerpt from a final paper I wrote in freshman year, discussing works by Joan Didion, Rebecca Solnit, and Karl Ove Knausgaard (with references to Marcel Proust). It's here as a placeholder to test changes that I make, but every once in a while I'll read it back and realize I should listen to my own advice more often.

One semester in, I haven't yet fully appreciated all that NYU has to offer. I found the way individuals assessed their peers to be similar to that of the reporter which berated Solnit. People are confused when others think and act differently, and offended when someone questions their motives. But we cannot have it both ways. By doing so, we stray from "peace, a private reconciliation" (Didion) that prompts not a realization, but a subtle change of mindset. Because the standard for happiness is unique to the individual, constantly trying to be better than (or more similar to) others is pointless, and thinking of life as a competition becomes an obstacle towards your utopia. Our lives will never be identical to the success we dream of or as horrible as our worst fears, but instead something unique that cannot be unveiled through trying to be someone or something else—to believe otherwise is to trap oneself in their own "prisons and punishments" (Solnit). Perhaps we divert our energy and love elsewhere, and cease picturing an erroneous image of both ourselves and others. Then, finally, we are alive. Our "only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes," through which we can see, understand, and live (Proust).