futile efforts to find perfection

Most of the time, things don't turn out like we planned. Sometimes they turn out better, and a lot of times they turn out worse. And while sometimes we hope to enter things with an open mind, it can be really hard to do when you expect great things from yourself and other people.
So me and my mom were driving to math tutoring. It's one of my summer activities and on occasions it can be fun. So I decided to check if the ACT scores were up, and they were. It was a bad decision. Since the scores were atrocious. Well, atrocious for what I wanted to get. It was at least 700 times worse than I expected and hoped. So instead of going to math tutoring, we sat in the parking lot and I cried. And then we left since I looked really horrible and was in no state to do math.
And the whole way home I felt like a loser. I still sort of feel like a loser, actually. I know that I am smart, it's just that things like the SAT, the subject tests, multiple choice tests, and evidently the ACT are harder for me than any of my friends, which is disappointing and annoying. And they aren't good enough to get into any school I want to go to.
But if the odds are against you, you just have to remember that whatever people say, it's what you truly are that matters. I would say that it's what you think that matters, but a lot of times what we think of ourselves is based on what the media says: what colleges say are good scores, what Hollywood says is beautiful, and what TV shows say is talented.
It's hard to have confidence in yourself when you compare yourself to other people, but when you think about it, you can't compare yourself to other people. It's like comparing a car and a tiger. They are too different to compare. You can't say a tiger is better than a car, and you can't say a car is better than a tiger. They are different. And while we are all people, we are all completely different subspecies of ourselves. All we can really compare are our biological characteristics. Not our strengths and weaknesses. So when you think about it, who's to say what's perfect and what's not? What is perfect anyway? Because I hear it doesn't exist. And if it doesn't then why do we strive so hard to be better than other people?
You are your own person. I'm my own person. Everyone has their own soul that has certain gifts and talents. And no one can tell me, you, or anyone that they aren't good enough. Because perfect doesn't exist and you should be proud of who you are. Because at the end of the day, you aren't the people who you envy; you're you, and you can't be happy if you are trying to be what someone else is. We will never find perfection. But perfect is boring. And what we have inside of us is so much greater.