There is something both amusing and tragic about classmates.

When we are young, sitting side by side on stiff wooden desks, everything feels equal.
We wear the same uniforms, complain about the same teachers, and dream the same big dreams.

We believe, with the foolish confidence of youth, that life will reward us fairly. That the one who topped the class will top in life, that the one who struggled will always struggle, that effort will always equal success.

But life is not a classroom. Life is a trickster, a mischievous storyteller who loves plot twists.

Then one day, years later, we meet again at ordinations, weddings, funerals, airports, or by accident at a supermarket. And suddenly, we see what nobody warned us about.

The boy who never did his assignments now owns a mansion. The one who won all the academic prizes is still searching for relevance.
The one who was always quiet now commands boardrooms, while the one who once led every debate now sits in silence, waiting for an opportunity that refuses to come.

And we ask ourselves: how did this happen?

Nobody told us that life does not follow the rules of the classroom. That hard work is important, but so is luck. That intelligence is valuable, but connections sometimes matter more.

That some rise not because they are the best, but because they were in the right place at the right time. That life does not grade us like exam scripts, it rolls the dice and sometimes, the results are baffling.

There is a good side to all of these: no matter how far life scatters us, when classmates meet again, the years disappear.
Titles do not matter.
Bank accounts do not speak.

We laugh over memories of forgotten nicknames, of teachers we swore we would never forget but now struggle to remember. For a brief moment, we return to a time when we were just young with dreams, before life stepped in with its unexpected script.

And just maybe, that is the real lesson: success is not just about who has more, but about who still has a heart that can remember.