Did you end up being more successful than your HS classmates?

I never put much thought into it after getting out of HS.

 

i don't really keep up with my hs friends, especially since I'm not on social media. but from what i can see many are pretty successful with family and work. my graduating class were full of ib kids and almost everyone was in ap. but none can fap like i do

 

They got “fat or bald or both” after 12 years? Their bodies collapsed at age 30? Damn. At least they’re still alive.

 

If you were honestly satisfied and happy with your life you wouldn't care. Just an honest observation

 

Was going to an enormous school where it would be impossible to really even know half your graduating class not the norm?

 

Maybe a decade ago, I went to a snow cone place in my home town with my kids. The guy that took my order and made the snow cones was a dude who bullied me pretty hard in junior high and some in high school. A bigger part of me than I'd like to admit took a certain amount of glee seeing that a decade out of high school the best this guy could do was taking orders at a snow cone place (I'm pretty sure it wasn't his business) while I had made a reasonable success out of myself by typical worldly comparison.

Then I came back a few more times and saw him still there, slinging snow cones during the hot Houston summer days and I didn't really feel great about my smugness anymore...sort of felt dirty. He actually tried to be nice to me and chit chat. I have no idea if he even remembers that he bullied me back in the day, but I realized that focusing on "beating" people from my past like that was pretty toxic and not the slightest bit productive.

Far better to just enjoy the success you do have, and look forward.

 

Worst humble brag ever.

 

Probably. Never cared much about them.
According to Instagram, no.

 

When we went to my 10 year reunion, we thought we were at the wrong venue due to all the old looking people walking in.

 

Interesting topic.

I think it breaks down into a strata.

Group 1) The people who never left the area and never sought education
Group 2) The people who never left the area but did seek education
Group 3A) The people who left the region and sought education
Group 3B) The people who left the greater region and sought education

* by "area" I generally mean about a 50 mile radius
** by "region" I generally mean 100+ mile radius typically landing in a metro area like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, or New Orleans
*** by "greater region" I generally mean 500+ mile radius typically landing somewhere like LA, NY, DC, Chicago, SF, Boston, or abroad

The distribution percentage-wise is probably something like 50-30-15-5.

Granted each layer does not necessarily mean more or less "success", but generally these things correlate. I know some people in Group 1 who are happy as hell and clearly making the best lives for themselves they can, which I count as success.

What really stands out for me are the "smart" kids who never made anything of themselves, and the... less than impressive kids who did. There are some really wasted talents from my class. Plenty of kids who were a lot smarter than me who got into drugs heavily or were just lazy with no work ethic or personal ambition that got exposed once they went to college or into the workforce. Then there are the kids who were not good students but their social skills (knowing what I know about some of them it may be borderline sociopathy) or looks (in the girls' case) have clearly served them well in their careers.

All this being said, I was super eager to cut the cord with virtually everyone from my K-12 days when I graduated. The culture where I grew up is kinda toxic and its a black hole for personal growth. I only recently started reconnecting with some people passively and noticed these trends.

 

I just wanted to be more successful than DaDakota.

 

I used to care a lot more about keeping up with my HS classmates in terms of prestige and comparing myself to them all the time. After some years, I just stopped caring as much honestly. Gradually, better things started happening for me. I met my wife and now I'm focused on that instead of what everyone else is doing.

 

God ain't making us like he used to.

 

I don't keep up too much anymore, but I do see some of the pictures and whatnot posted on facebook. I only hang out with a couple of guys from high school (guys that stood in my wedding). We lived in a semi small town (Texas City). Some are successful, some aren't. For the most part, the folks that cared in school, still care now and do well. But there are a lot of people do well who ended up working in the refineries.

 

if you look at my facebook everyone is living their best life it seems.

op definition of success and someone else definition is all over the place

interesting you rate things on geography. i guess.. but it is a curious criteria. how do you feel about someone that lives in a great city and resides and dies there? if the location is great you may not need to leave. sounds like you come from a less desirable location?

 

This was a BIG issue for me and my circle of friends in HS. We were the type of kids that could be lazy but still get good grades. When we hit college we got hit HARD and were forced to really give full effort in order to succeed, it was a tough adjustment and it really tested us. Most of us were able to improve our habits and discipline, but some did not and never recovered.

 

I don't really "rate" things on geography, I just find it to be one of the strongest corollaries and a convenient bucket to use as a sorting mechanism.

Generally speaking it takes a lot of effort to relocate. That effort is usually preceded by a large amount of skill or desire to better oneself. That skill and desire are strong indicators of how successful someone has/will be.

Let's just say that the amount of people in Groups 3A or 3B that I know whom I would consider "unsuccessful" is quite low, while the amount of people in Group 1 whom I consider unsuccessful is significantly higher. I don't think that's a coincidence. This begs the question "what is success", to which I don't have a good answer.... but you know it when you see it.

Even If you grow up in an amazing place, most folks would get rather bored and want to seek our new challenges and personal growth. Sometimes you can find those challenges locally, like maybe starting a family or starting a business. Even if you live in a shithole, if you're raising a family, providing for your kids, setting them up for success, and enjoying the experience, that's success IMO.

 

This is a common shared experience among Millennials.

When you combine the "everyone gets an 'A'" phenomenon with a five-fold increase in students entering college over the last 50 years you're going to end up with some very unhappy outcomes.

 

I went to HS with Lina Hildalgo so I would say yes.