Let me ask you something. How many nights have you stayed awake, chasing a dream that isn’t even yours? How many times have you worn the badge of “prestige”—Ivy League grad, top-tier engineer, corporate star—only to feel a quiet hollowness beneath it all?
I met someone recently. Let’s call him Alex. Alex graduated from one of those institutions we’re taught to worship—MIT, Harvard, Stanford, take your pick. The kind of place that slaps a golden ticket on your resume and makes parents beam with pride. But when I asked Alex, “What now? What’s next?” he laughed—a brittle, weary sound. “I climbed the mountain,” he said. “But the view? It’s just more mountains.”
Let that sink in.
We’re raised to believe that success is a ladder: Study hard, get into the right school, land the right job, and—poof—happiness materializes. But here’s the truth no one tells you: MIT can teach you to code a robot. Harvard can train you to argue a case. But neither can answer the question burning in your chest: “Who am I when the degrees, the titles, the applause… all of it falls away?”
You see, we confuse achievement with meaning. We think that if we collect enough accolades, we’ll finally feel enough. But here’s the catch: The “you” that’s hungry for validation, the “you” that’s terrified of failure, the “you” that’s screaming, “Do they respect me? Do they envy me?”—that “you” will never be satisfied. Not even with a Nobel Prize in your hand.
Alex realized this. After years of hustling, he hit a wall. “I was solving problems,” he told me, “but I’d become the problem. My mind was full, but my soul was starving.” So he did something radical. He stopped introducing himself as “Alex, MIT ’18.” Instead, he said, “Call me ‘I.’”
Wait—what does that even mean?
It means this: The moment you stop hiding behind what you’ve done and start embracing who you are, everything shifts. “MIT” and “Harvard” are just labels—they’re not you. They’re costumes you wear in the theater of society. But what’s underneath? Who’s the actor when the play ends?
This isn’t about dismissing education. It’s about recognizing that no institution, no matter how elite, can hand you the one thing you’re truly craving: yourself. The unshakable, unshrinkable, undefinable essence that exists beyond GPAs and LinkedIn profiles. The part of you that doesn’t need to be “the best” to feel whole.
Think about it: When you’re lying awake at 3 a.m., haunted by existential dread, will your Ivy League degree whisper comfort? When you’re sitting alone, staring at a ceiling fan, wondering, “Is this all there is?”—will your job title hold your hand? No. Because what you’re yearning for isn’t out there. It’s in here.
So, am I saying don’t go to MIT or Harvard? Of course not. Chase knowledge! Build rockets! Cure diseases! But don’t confuse those tools with the answer. The deepest questions—Who am I? Why am I here? What is love? What is fear?—aren’t solved in a lecture hall. They’re unraveled in the silence between your thoughts, in the courage to ask, “What’s left when I strip away everything I’ve been told to be?”
Alex discovered that. He still codes. He still innovates. But now, he does it from a place of wholeness, not hunger. The “I” he found isn’t competing, comparing, or clinging—it’s just… alive.
You don’t need a diploma to meet that “I.” You just need the guts to stop running, turn inward, and ask: “What if the thing I’ve been searching for… has been here all along?”
The world will keep selling you dreams—get here, buy this, become that. But you? You’re not a resume. You’re not a brand. You’re a living, breathing mystery. And no university, no matter how famous, can teach you how to solve that.
So go ahead. Apply to Harvard. Ace the interview. But promise yourself this: When the cap and gown come off, you’ll start the real journey—the one that begins where MIT’s syllabus ends.
The journey home. To you.