Enough Take #1

By Nhi Nguyen / Spring 2025

At 4:17 in the morning, I am not up, but my body is– tight shoulders and a stiff neck signal a restless night. I woke up from my bad sleep position– I slept sitting. I did not mean to fall asleep. My laptop is still open. In a panic, I picked up my phone, checked the time, rubbed my eyes, and got back to work. Google Docs lit up, showing my incomplete assignment on the fundamentals of economics...

This isn’t unusual, if not a regular in my routine. My night routine looks like this: be woken up, panic, go back to work, and repeat. Along the way, somewhere on it, my body picked up the depletion.

Exhaustion became a part of the job description, and stopping isn’t an option because, yes, the machine does not put up with weaknesses, and winners do not rest.

Growing up in a typical Asian household taught me that my achievements speak louder and hold more weight than anything, even when nobody says it explicitly. At least, my parents never addressed it specifically, but I can see it. I can see it when my mom’s face lit up when she saw my perfect score. I can see it when my dad brags about my achievement, but still try to act humble about it. Honestly, it feels absolutely amazing to be proud of, to be good. So, I do it.

Grades become my currency metrics, where As will be appraised and Bs are the bare minimum. Pride is not unconditional; rather, it is earned, quantified, and evaluated. There is an equation for it, I believe. My self-worth, I mean. It is composed of many factors, number of certificates, medals, and good grades in the report.

During high school, I began to chase after the letter grades, not the knowledge; perhaps I was being strategic in what I absorbed intellectually; perhaps pure curiosity had been soaked up to make place for my ultimate “plan”. The plan could land me in my dream schools, my dream jobs, and my dream social status. So, I dived right into it. From spending the last 15 minutes of break time solving the extra math work to cutting the screen time for an additional extracurricular, all, hoping for a better resume. Despite being bold, the aspiration was real. I told myself it was worth it—that this was the path to my dream. And for a while, I really believed it.

The scoring was rewarding for those who conquer, but faithful to those who fail to climb the ladder.

Being the class lead in academic performance, I could never let my guard down, especially the upcoming SAT test as the final examination for concluding the highschool as well as the stepping stone to my dream university. I had prepared for months—practice exams, tutoring sessions, flashcards memorized up to a queasy point. But when it came to taking the test, my body started to rebel. Right, the worst always comes at the critical moment. A heartless fever hit late at night that left me wobbly and weak. I stumbled into the testing site anyhow, gobbling pain pills by the handful down to my throat. While the questions were suspended in space in front of me, I remember the sting of tears as I fought to focus. The bell rang with a number of questions left empty, that day the aspiration soul had left me with the next two weeks of anxiety for the result.

Nothing more to expect, when the scores arrived, it was the death penalty. Not because 1290 is a poor score, but due to inadequacy. The reactions were worse than the score itself. My parents did not yell. They did not need to. The disappointment was tangible, the manner in which my parents’ smile did not meet their eyes. Friends who got better scores suddenly spoke to me in whispers, as if failure was catching. For the first time, I questioned the system I had dedicated myself to. The system that once got me the motivation to push forward. The system that got me applause from my peers. If one test could reverse years of effort, what was the point?

I hated the question “What makes you special and worthy among thousands of students” in the college application. Honestly, I did not know what made me different. Aren’t my grades enough? – It speaks for me. It was me. It defined me.

I don’t remember what I wrote for that part, but I am sure it was not coming from my heart.

However, I took the last chance to submit dozens of applications, just to hear rejection piled up. “We regret informing you...” They all sounded like another edict: Too bad. I retreated, realizing that I had been a failure not just academically, but even as a person. The attempt perishes to nothing, hours of dedication crumble, and my parents' late-night toil for my fee was useless.

Redemption then came, unexpectedly, not in the form of an Ivy League acceptance letter, but rather in a classroom of a community college.

At the beginning, I was upset. Upset about where I eventually got in. Community College was never set on my checklist– CC was more like a consolation prize for ones who did not quite succeed, if not failed. But then, I met professors who engaged with me and my work. They liked my approach and perspective. I met friends who would ask about my weekends and not my SAT or GPA. Apparently, those numbers matter less to me here. Not entirely, but less. I started to feel the excitement to learn again– the learning for myself, not for any algorithmic evaluation of my worthiness.

On the spring day of last year when my UCSD acceptance arrived, I stared at the acceptance letter, all the late, restless nights, panic attacks, and moments of doubt that led me here. I was surprised that I felt accustomed to it. The acceptance was not a validation, perhaps some kind of– freedom. A proof, proving that a small self of me could achieve without letting the pressure, competition, the machine, define me.

Late at night, as I go to bed at a reasonable hour, I recall that girl who woke up at 4:17 AM, sacrificing sleep, health, and happiness for the approval of the algorithm. My laptop light is substituted by moonbeams that filter in through the curtains. My shoulders are dropping, breathing is returning to normal. In the other part of the room, my phone is silent—no wake-up calls have been set in the early morning

Somewhere, another student is just beginning their own fight with the Machine. I wish I could tell them about the lesson that took me years to learn: Your worth was never in the numbers.

It's in the late-night conversations that have nothing to do with school, in the things you do just for fun, in the person you're becoming, independent of any system's calculation. The Machine will always demand more, your joy, your sweat, your time, your youth. Don’t let it because I and you—we are enough.