![\"\"](\"http:\/\/25.media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mcya4skpiF1qgka1eo1_500.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nWhy?\r\n\r\nBecause I did not do good enough <\/em>on the LSAT\u2026 again. This time I fell harder because the night I received my score was the night before Canadian law school applications were due. I am used to failure, but this time it was different. This time I had to tell my dad, in the hospital. This time, it was a deciding factor for law school acceptance. This time, almost everyone I knew wrote it too, and will be asking me all week how it went. This time, I felt like I aced it, only to find out I let blind optimism fool me.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve been telling my parents all month how my score is going to be awesome, how I\u2019ve got law school in the bag, how I am not stressed with school or post-grad plans. A lot of my friends in\u00a0fourth year have been doing the same. Why do we belittle our student hardships when our parents ask us if we are OK? I do it because I don\u2019t want to stress them out about the unknown or the weight of my ambitions\u2014that is my burden to bear. Having to tell my dad was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. He told me not to cry because losers cry and I am a winner. He told me to screw law school and spend my life studying Hegel. He said that all he wants to do in the world is eat and drink water right now, but he can\u2019t; and so, I need to add some perspective to my score and evaluate whether it really is the end of the world. \u00a0I know it\u2019s silly, but a part of me thought that giving him the good news was going to help him recover faster and that\u2019s why I let the pain swallow me whole. I let my parents down\u2026big time. Underneath their pep talks, I sensed a subtle panic. Now what? We came all the way to Canada, for this? My mother worked night-shifts for this?\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/25.media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mcya3m7OkP1rbyamlo1_400.gif\")
\r\n\r\nI just felt like the biggest loser.\r\n\r\nBut in this darkness, I experienced something beautiful. A text from my spirit-guide ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/25.media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mcy9m8HsZ51ra7jeao1_500.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nWhat makes humans so miserable is that we get so caught up in trying to actualize our own plans, that we forget about the universe\u2019s plan for ourselves. And when the universe\u2019s plan conflicts with our own, we lose ourselves in the darkness\u2014a state some never arise from. Why did a part of me inside light up when my parents gave me their blessings to pursue a PhD in political science? Why did I experience that subway moment? Why were there so many technical difficulties when I tried to pay for my law school applications?\r\n\r\nWhen we fixate ourselves on actualizing a dream, we became slaves to it. My LSAT score was the universe\u2019s way of freeing me from this slavery. After this realization, every step I took felt weightless\u2014almost purposeless. No longer did I stomp my heels into the ground as if I had a world to save. Only when we get everything we\u2019ve ever wanted, and lose it can we experience true freedom. All I wanted was to figure out how to actualize my purpose, I learned that ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/reason.com\/assets\/mc\/mwelch\/2010_06\/hegel_groucho.jpg\")
\r\n\r\n