Manhattan High School has over 1,700 students, 1,700 different faces pass by every day. Some might wonder where they will go after high school, others have known what they were going to do since birth. But what about the ones who are just ready for life? The world may never know what exactly defines “ready for life”, because no individual has the right to really say what “ready” entails, but all i can say is sometimes people just know — and they jump into it.

So what do you do when you’ve done everything society expected you to do? Having a job, getting great grades — maybe you’re the president of an academic club — constantly being admired by fellow students or even those in an authoritative position. Out of all the good things that one might do, what if they wake up and realize that they are simply ahead of everyone else and are ready? Well, they drop out.

There it is, a high school dropout, a person who got their GED. Automatically they are viewed as lazy, unintelligent, and simply ignorant. But why is that? Sure, there are a few bad apples in the barrel who say, “yeah I’m going to drop out of school because I can go to Colorado, YOLO” but that is not always the case, and if you’re considering that, I am not promoting it.

Kids who decide to drop out should not be looked at so negatively, we are told at this are to make decisions and that we need to plan out our lives, and this is a very big decision. Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Charles Dickens, Ringo Starr — all very successful men who dropped out of high school and became role models. They created revolutionary things, insane ideas, bettered humanity and most of all they inspired people. Franklin D. Roosevelt once said; “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

Success is not all about pleasing everybody, making a million bucks or being a rockstar. It’s about sitting down at the end of the day in the future, whether it be five years from now or 15 , and being satisfied with yourself.