This past August, I went to a relative’s house for homemade pizza. As an avid food lover, I went to the dinner with high expectations—my dad makes a mean homemade pizza.

He makes the dough by hand, lets it rise once, pounds it down, then lets it rise again. The initial process for the dough takes almost three hours. Then, for the sauce, he painstakingly peels and minces onions and adds spices—some handpicked from our garden—to the tomato sauce. At the same time, he cooks up toppings like Italian sausage to add on the side. Finally, after spreading the sauce on just-risen dough, he delicately layers each pizza with an array of cheeses and toppings and bakes them to perfection.

That’s not what I saw at my relative’s house. My empty stomach and I saw, to my chagrin, canned pizza sauce sloppily poured on pre-made dough. Packaged shredded cheese and other toppings were clumped on and thrown in the oven.

Homemade? Really? The “homemade” pizzas took about as much time to make as it would have taken me to order a pizza over the phone from Pizza Hut.

This simple example is just one of many scenarios where people take the easy way out. Let’s face it: We love doing things the easy way. Have a book to read for school? Find it on SparkNotes and know everything you need to know in 20 minutes. Need to write a paper for Spanish? Google Translate. Have a favorite TV show? Watch it on Netflix and avoid commercials.

If things get difficult, it’s so easy to just give up. Not getting playing time in your sport of choice? Just quit, blame the coach. Struggling in a class? Just drop out of it; you never liked that class anyway. In an age where mediocrity reigns, those who excel against all odds still shine through. On Nov. 14, 6-foot, 4 inch Zach Hodskins made his debut for the Florida Gators’s basketball team. The catch? He was born without the lower part of his left arm—that is, he’s a one-handed basketball player competing in Division 1 basketball. It would have been easy for him never to attempt sports in the first place due to his physical disability, but he chose to work twice as hard and earned himself a spot on the Gators as a preferred walk-on. Hodskins just goes to show that you can accomplish your goals if you put your mind to them.

Despite this, I worry that we’ve reached a point where we always do the minimum amount of work possible. It’s easy to feel apathetic about learning a topic in school that we may or may not ever apply in our lives when we can just look up the concept online. This thought pervades the walls of CHS.

It’s almost as if, nowadays, doing what’s expected is unexpected.

We all have talents, passions, goals. I know you’ve heard it all before, but don’t hold back. All too often we’re afraid to do something extra, something great, just for fear of being different. No one wakes up each day planning to fail. But we shouldn’t be afraid of success, either. So I challenge you: put in the extra work and make something great happen. Don’t be content with mediocrity. Write a book. Go overseas. Start a business. Bake a batch of cookies. But don’t be content with mediocrity.

By the way, does anyone have the number for Pizza Hut?

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Matt Del Busto at [email protected].