When we were younger, we used to play supermarket in the basement of our little brick house in Queens. We would play with fake money that Dad made for us, with our youthful faces smiling from the center of mock dollar bills. We would buy and sell the various pieces of food we had, offering $1 for a foam rubber apple or $.50 for Styrofoam peanut popcorn. Sadly, I don’t think you guys ever realized how close this would mirror your future, and how much you would truly despise it.

One thing that never changed from our adolescent days was our indecisiveness. When we were younger and asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, we always responded with “I don’t know.” That answer still hasn’t changed, since we’re all “sucky at everything,” as Alice bluntly puts it. Indeed, we’d probably enjoy jobs that we were good at, but it would help if we weren’t so horrid at every subject.

Maybe I’m being too idealistic; however, I believe we are all talented in our own ways. You were always good at math, Diane, enjoying the definitive answer of a number. On the other hand, you, Alice, always hated equations, and took satisfaction in history and its never-changing events of the past. From kindergarten to high school, we all excelled in our respective pleasures, always counting on the class we rocked in to pull up our depressing grades from the courses we loathed.

Thus, it confused me when you both took a major in a science profession. It was probably Dad who steered you into pharmacy, Diane, with him constantly telling you about its six-figure salary and never-ending demand. You never really excelled in science, but you decided to ditch our friendly numbers in hopes of attaining financial success. Five years later and you’ve already fallen a year behind because of failing science courses. It pains me to see you still trying to go through all this for a loveless job.

When it was time for you to choose a college, Alice, you were also confused. For some reason, you took the path of pharmacy too, even though you were the worst science child of the Chu family. Three years later and you’re about to be a year behind, too. It’s no mystery why this is; we all know you’re really sucky at science.

But you guys should realize that you don’t have to stick with something you’re bad at. There are many jobs out there for you that don’t require you to know toxicology or pharmacology. True, you may be making less money as a math teacher or a historian, but at least you’ll value what you do. I know you’re scared of “wasting four years of your life,” only to come out with no job and a lot of college debt.

Remember when you used to work at CVS, fishing for prescriptions on various shelves and doing Sudokus behind the counter, waiting for a “sick person” or a customer with items for you to checkout to show up? I do recall you saying it was boring, even though the pay was good. I thought you would have had an epiphany and realized the cliché that money couldn’t buy the happiness you sought, but you didn’t.

I want you to understand that success isn’t defined by the amount of money you make, contrary to our Chinese beliefs. Even though our grandmother plays mahjong with other grannies who brag about how “my grandkid goes to Stuyvesant,” or “my son graduated from Cornell and became a doctor,” we don’t have to be a part of this. If all we’re trying to do in life is impress old Chinese ladies, I think we will have accomplished very little of our own goals.