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My Time in High School

Time is a complex concept that metamorphizes through the lens of life experiences. In

Einstein’s Dreams, multiple perceptions of time through which life can be lived are presented.

There is not a strict pattern of time. Instead, Alan Lightman explores how people have their own

remembrances of time within certain moments. I relate to the message in Einstein’s Dreams

because during high school, I experienced time in myriad forms.

Freshman year was full of new opportunities with numerous choices. I was scared to

make the wrong decision because “At every point of decision...the world splits into three worlds,

each with the same people but with different fates for those people” (17). For example, if I joined

the band, I would have less time to do homework. If I chose to be in the choir, then I could not

be in the band. I also had the option of not being involved in any extracurricular activities. Each

of these possible decisions led to an infinite world of outcomes.

Sophomore year was all about constant movement. High school was always a contest.

Whether in popularity, academics, or the lunch line, each person always tried to out-compete the

other. Academically, the fight was a competition for class rank. Everyone had the desire to speed

up. The result appeared to be similar to Lightman’s description of a world in perpetual motion.

“The motion effect is all relative...Consequently, when two people pass on the

street, each sees the other’s time flow more slowly. Each sees the other gaining

time. More maddening still, the faster one travels past a neighbor, the faster the

neighbor appears to be traveling” (71). 

Junior year emphasized the popularity food chain and the idea that “Height has become

status” (23). As students increased in popularity, they traveled higher up the chain. However, the

inference is that a position inside the hierarchy is held in the first place. “Likewise, a person
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looking down on another house tends to dismiss its occupants as spent, weak, and shortsighted.

Some boast that they have lived their whole lives up, that they were born in the highest house on

the highest mountain peak and have never descended” (23). Because I attended classes in a small

county, students who had been adored by their peers since kindergarten often disparaged anyone

who wasn’t like them. Thus, it was difficult to ascend the ladder.

Senior year was the end of time. My fellow graduates and I lived like these were the last

days of our lives because, in a way, they were. We might not see each other for many years. We

would never again experience the same feelings about life and those around us. Therefore, we

could relate to the statement, “They live moment to moment, and each moment is full” (101). I

hugged people I had never met before. I cried because high school was almost over; although for

the past three years I could think of nothing but the joy of graduation. 

At graduation, I felt as though time was simultaneously going very fast and utterly slow.

As Salutatorian, I was nervous about speaking with one thousand eyes looking back at mine.

With every word that someone else said the time to share my sentiments about the last four years

was getting closer. My speech allowed me to “...recount each memory, each action taken, each

cause and effect” that delivered me to that moment (101). Later, as I was waiting in the blazing

sun for my name to be called to receive my diploma, time seemed to pass very slowly. After

waiting for what felt like hours, taking my diploma took only a few seconds. When the last hat

had been picked up off the field and the last pictures were taken, graduation and high school

were officially over. 

My idea of time changed throughout high school because it moved differently in each

moment. In a way, I felt like I was in a world where “time flows backward” (79). I had finally

reached the top of the totem pole in eighth grade. As a freshman, I was all the way back down at
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the bottom of the pole. I had worked hard only to have to climb back up as I pursued graduation.

It was amazing to see how time, as well as the perception of certain events, changed as I became

older and more acquainted with life. Through the lens of Einstein’s Dreams, I have seen

variations of time transform my life.