You’re baking some cookies for tomorrow’s club meeting. Measuring the flour, butter, eggs, and those yummy chocolate chips, you know these are going to be one heck of a batch of cookies. Why? You measured everything accurately and so far, they are turning out just right. At 375 degrees they are turning a nice golden brown in the oven—success.

This instance almost seems “dummy proof”. Let’s face it, you grabbed your “Baking Made Easy” cookbook, whisked a few ingredients in a bowl, followed a direct path of instructions and accomplished the “success” of the mouth watering chewy chocolate chunk cookies you had originally hoped for.

Certain people may refer to success as a “recipe” as there are select ingredients one must possess and a series of instructions you have to follow to accomplish your goal. But what if achieving this sense of accomplishment does not have a particular path to follow? This is why I believe success is an immeasurable quality. There are too many individuals—both students and adults, that have yet to determine this. What do you believe success is? The 98% you got on your English essay? The number of expensive cars you own in the driveway? What about the connections you have? Everyone views their accomplishments differently.

Accomplishments and all aside, there is one ingredient that can’t exactly be measured. To me, this is happiness. Many students whisk themselves around like zombies from class to class never truly acknowledging who they are, what they live for, or even the small things that occur in their day to day routine. People are busy. People have work to do. People have serious duties to complete. That is inevitable.

Stress, believe it or not, is another factor which often goes hand in hand with success. Generally, “being busy”, “working hard”, and “completing serious things” usually leads to greater opportunities and maybe this is your version of accomplishment. But let me ask you this: do you put yourself through crazy amounts of stress all for the final goal of “being successful”? If so, I think we need to reconsider what we are living to achieve and living to feel. Do you want to wake up in the morning and worry about the cornucopia of tedious tasks you have to complete simply in hopes of going to a “good university” or getting a “good job”? What about the fact that you hate the courses you are taking. Is it worth spending days on end doing something that you don’t like? In my opinion it’s important to embrace your passions, in fact, you should pursue them. The idea of starting your day with a positive attitude, people you adore and your favorite thing in the world is my personal recipe for success.

Furthermore, perhaps it’s appropriate to state the obvious and cliché quotation here: “it’s the journey rather than the destination”. As the grade seven you, perhaps you couldn’t wait to be in grade twelve—you could finally graduate and blow this pop stand, otherwise known as the Bishop Strachan School. However, as a grade twelve student it’s about the years which you experienced up until that point rather than the grad tie you get to wear. One thing I’ll never forget is when peer Lia Pon once told me in our grade eight years: “memories are memories good or bad”. That saying is relevant to me on the account of I believe it to be true. Whether you have an unflattering photo posted of you on facebook or make a really embarrassing joke, we should embrace all moments “both good and bad”.

To achieve “success” you can’t just type your destination into the GPS system in your car. Although some people’s version of success is easier to attain than others, we all have to experience the “journey” to get there, even infamous Miley Cyrus refers to this moment as “the climb”. I say, as long or short lived this “climb” may be, we might as well have one heck of a time doing it. Embrace your high school years, enjoy your company, and do the things you love. You never know, you may just feel successful doing it.