NBA star Jeremy Lin is proud to have been raised in Palo Alto, California, which he says is "the greatest city in the world."
But he cannot deny that it was a difficult place to grow up in. When he recently read about "The Silicon Valley Suicides," he reflected on his own experience at Palo Alto High School, where two of his classmates took their own lives.
"The pressure to succeed in high school is all too familiar to me. I distinctly remember being a freshman in high school, overwhelmed by the belief that my GPA [grade point average] over the next four years would make or break my life. My daily thought process was that every homework assignment, every project, every test could be the difference," he writes on his Facebook page.
Lin still remembers the countless times he was unable to sleep every Sunday evening, then waking up covered in sweat because he just had a nightmare that he failed a test.
"I dreaded Sundays because it meant I just finished my weekend basketball tournament—my precious outlet from academics—and now faced a whole week of immense pressure at school," he shares. Lin felt pressured not only by his parents and peers but also by himself.
It was only when he made the personal choice not to define himself by his successes and accomplishments that Lin found happiness and peace.
"I learned through my brother, my pastor and my friends that my identity and my worth were in more than my grades. Growing up. my parents always said, 'Do your best and trust God with the results.' When I learned to truly understand what that meant, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders," he says.
Lin says he considers himself lucky for having conquered his struggles and learning how to adopt a healthier perspective on life. He says two of his classmates were not so fortunate. When he was just a freshman at Palo Alto High School, his seatmate committed suicide. A year later, another classmate took his own life. These suicides made Lin realise that people do not often know what burdens people around them are carrying, and he promised to be more sensitive and open to other people's struggles from then on.
"We may not have the answers to how to completely solve these issues, but we can take more time to really listen to each other, to reach out and have compassion on one another," he says. "I don't have any great insight and I don't know exactly what it's like to be a high school student today. I do know that I'm proud to be from Palo Alto, a resilient community that I see striving to learn how to better support and care for each other. I hope that my personal experience can remind someone else that they are worth so much more than their accomplishments."
