Being in the spotlight is never easy, especially if you were thrust into it at a very young age. Charlotte Hornets star Jeremy Lin highlighted that last week in a very emotional and personal Facebook post.
Jeremy Lin may not have been all too young when he gained basketball fans' attention in 2012, but he certainly knows the difficulties that come with fame. During that year, he led the New York Knicks to a winning turnaround and earned the nickname 'Linsanity.'
Since then, his NBA career has had extreme ups and downs that has always placed him under strict scrutiny from both critics and his own followers as well.
But these highs and lows did not even start with NBA. These had followed him ever since high school, which makes perfect sense as to why wrote about pressure and sometimes succumbing to it last week.
The 27-year old NBA star was responding to The Atlantic's cover story of the month, "The Silicon Valley Suicides," when he published a long and emotional Facebook post on Dec. 9. The article talked about the dangerous and sometimes fatal depression that high school students at Silicon Valley might experience — a depression that may lead to suicide.
Lin talked about how it all hit home, "I distinctly remember being a freshman in high school, overwhelmed by the belief that my GPA 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. The difference between a great college and a mediocre college. The difference between success and failure. The difference between happiness and misery."
The pressure must have been growing for the basketball player at the time. Not only did he have to meet the academic target, he also had to do well as a shooting guard for the Palo Alto High School basketball team so he can eventually get an athletic scholarship to a Division I school.
That, however, did not happen, reports The Washington Post. Instead, he was told to consider entering a Division III school instead.
But perhaps what really hit close to him with the article is the topic of the pressure leading some to suicide. He talked about how a seatmate and then a friend both committed suicide. He recalled how both experiences made him realise that a person is "much more than their accomplishments."
The rest of Jeremy Lin's post was as embedded with emotions. He concluded it by saying that this particular problem may not have a solution yet but simply taking time to listen just might make a difference.
