Overlooked

I’ve never felt overlooked in my life until this point. Before this it was always, Nikhil how could you do that? How did you score that basket? How did you build that Lego? How did you talk so well? Nikhil, how are you so good?

Sounds egotistical. But the reality was people expected me to win. I was expected to be “great”. And honestly, I expected it of myself too. Pressure is a privilege right. Because that pressure to be the greatest came from everywhere in my life.

So now as I go to UCLA, I’ve fallen short in my eyes. Short is putting it nicely. Some people tell me how the fuck did you fall short going to UCLA. How do I tell them that in my eyes, UCLA is nothing—I’ve never envisioned myself going there. There is no greatness in attending UCLA. I feel no honor.

So when I feel sad or am mellow it pisses me the fuck off to see people happy for me. People saying “You got in to UCLA! Congrats!” and I have to shake their hand, smile, and enthusiastically nod.

You could say these people are being nice. But what they’re doing is giving me a consolation prize. See these same people marveled at the person I was, the things I was building, and how my mind worked. The second a college labeled my worth, they no longer expected greatness from me. I became a quantifiable average. So many people go to UCLA. Very little people in the world are great.

But I want to be great. Fuck it I want to be the greatest. I feel like I should be the greatest. It feels like I was made to be—my mind, my hands, feel like they should be fucking achieving greatness.

So for the first time in my life, I have truly felt overlooked. People no longer expect greatness from me and that hurts. They no longer see me for Nikhil Sinha. Rather they see my fucking LinkedIn subtitle. I will be the greatest; it starts with believing in it.