Somewhere in a library in a community college, there is a student drinking her third cup of coffee. Her term paper is due in a week but she isn’t waiting until the last minute to finish it up. No, she is taking her time and putting her heart into it — which is something she does with everything she does. She saw a Snap on Snapchat about parents bribing people to get their kids into exclusive colleges and for a minute, she was at a crossroads. She felt a wave of anger rise up in her stomach just thinking about someone getting an advantage over her. Had that person stayed home on Friday nights trying to learn AP Calculus and AP Chemistry? Had that person worked a part-job and saved money for college? Had that person cried when the community college scholarship arrived in the mail and then cried again when the scholarship to the local university did too? No. But the student quickly took a breath and pushed those thoughts away. Jealousy, envy, anger were all a fool’s emotions. She didn’t have enough energy for them and they didn’t fit into her plan. She was going to be a doctor. And while she would not go into Harvard Medical School, she would become one of the finest oncologists in the world. Her formable work-ethic and raw drive overcame any lack of connections her divorced mom might have had.
And one day, in the irony of ironies, she ended up saving the life of one of the kids whose parents bribed her into college. As her healed patient walked out the door, she said, “Thank God I am rich. It’s the only way to know the very best at what they do.”
