On the college admissions scandal, stealing someone
else’s opportunity in the way it was allegedly done is one of the worst
acts imaginable. It is indeed the polar opposite of helping someone
else help himself, the least selfish thing one can do, in helping another
person become self-sufficient.
In my new book, The Secret Life: A Book of Wisdom, I write that
Maimonides taught that we will succeed in life only when we are true to
ourselves. While we should continually strive to become the noblest version of
ourselves, we must never pretend to be someone else, or pretend to be a
different person from who we are, or different from the person who we are
sincerely striving to become.
The college admissions tricksters stole places from those
who had earned those spots. The victims are not obscure: they are real people
with real names and faces, and we know exactly who they are. They are the ones
who were on admissions waiting lists at these elite schools but who never wound
up getting in.
The tricksters, in pretending to be what they were not - namely,
sports champions - were mocking the true sports heroes, the high school
students who woke up at four o’clock every morning to train and
become great athletes competing for the few open roster spots on the
competitive athletic teams at these elite schools. These are the true
champions who were denied their rightful spots due to the alleged scheme, and
they are the second group of victims here who have paid a heavy price.
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