When I was in high school, the senior yearbook was a big deal. It included class photos for all the homerooms, professionally shot individual color headshot photos for that year’s graduating class, pictures of sports teams, activities and events.
One of everyone’s favorite sections was “Most Likely/Best”. Students vied to get selected for that year’s:
- Most likely to succeed – Always went to the top male and female student in the class.
- Best ass – Often a controversial winner.
- Best dressed – Usually self evident. I’ll never forget Paul P who wore suits regularly and a tux with a bow tie at least once a month.
- There were other categories too like funniest, best athlete, etc.
I graduated first in my class, achieving the goal of being high school valedictorian that I set for myself in 7th grade. So I was chosen as “Most Likely to Succeed”.
I sometimes wonder what happened to the other winners and how their lives turned out.
I doubt many of my classmates would have predicted I’d drop out of college and never graduate. I’d work as a warehouse guy, a laborer, and various other craptastic low wage jobs for a decade before stumbling into a career in sales. I’d marry a woman 19 years older than me, raise two step kids, lose my stepdaughter to a drug overdose and my wife to lung cancer.
Would they consider the life I had and the life I have today a success?
I would not have predicted the life I have had. I expected to be a doctor or a lawyer, have 3 kids, live in a big fancy home, drive a Mercedes, have a purebred dog and be extremely wealthy, possibly “famous” within my profession.
Instead, I am none of those. I don’t even want to be any of those (except for the extremely wealthy one!)
Today, I’d vote myself as “Most Likely to Be Content”. That’s pretty good to me.