A lot of people think that success and well-being are mutually exclusive that you can not have both. People who think that they can achieve this success by giving up the things that really make them happy in their lives, such as social life, sleep time, reading time, do nothing but make themselves suffer by making these self-compromises a necessity on the way to success. In my opinion, well-being shouldn’t be our prize after suffering for years, we should allowed to enjoy our life’s even if it’s on the way of something greater. There a lot of people who feel alone during their way to success, trying to find their balance. To give an example from my own daily life, in the 8’th grade of secondary school, I spent a whole year studying in my room for the entrance exam to high schools, I did not meet with my friends, I worked until 3 am or 4 am and compromised my sleep. In short, I gave up everything that made me who I am. I took the exam, passed out, and when I look back, I had a whole year of emptiness. Did I win a good high school, yes I did, but there was a whole year gap in my life. I believed that if I compromised on my social activities and myself, I would be more successful, which I made a necessity. But on the other hand, another friend of mine didn't act like me and slept, she kept her social life and school life in balance, she worked hard, yes, but she didn't compromise herself and is now in a much better high school than me. And that's when I realized that don't compromise on my own life, it's actually a torture I do for myself because motivation is very important to be successful and I don't get closer to success by compromising my life, I'm getting away from success by destroying my motivation. Unfortunately, there is a thought in Turkish culture that we have to compromise our lives in order to achieve success. As if we are plants, our schools think that we have to sit at home and solve exams and homework for hours. They think that if we do not solve it, we will fail the university exam. In fact, the biggest of my reasons for wanting to study abroad is that I don't want to enter the Turkish exam system, I don't want to inflict this psychological torture on myself, and I am afraid of the thought that we have to compromise our lives for the Turks to be successful, to win this exam, to sit at home and study for hours, weeks, months. I see my friends studying for this university exam and I really admire them, they have a very bad psychology. All our lives, everyone has convinced us that this university exam is the only way to be successful in our lives. That's why most of my friends sacrifice their social and private lives, be it family pressure or school pressure. Our culture has made us believe that no one has time to normally go out and have coffee with their friends. The sad thing is, the person speaking in ted talk said that people do this on their own, it is an individual issue and they can solve this problem on their own, in short, they have solutions to solve this problem instead of Turkish culture because we have a system in Turkish culture that forces people to give up form their well-beings.
