Probably no one understands the importance of education because everyone says that the educational system is not preparing you for the next step.
Studies = the process by which you assimilate information in an educational institution, resulting in a paper called a diploma or certificate.
Success = the feeling of satisfaction that reflects the results (positive and expected) connected to a set of abilities.
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The first time I felt that studies were no longer relevant to personal or professional success was when I struck an outdated educational system. Specifically, when I had my high school final exam. I didn’t understand how it can help me learn over 20 commentaries, word by word, just to move on to the next stage.
I still don’t understand. And I bet you don’t understand it too. And it is confirmed that probably no one understands because everyone says that the educational system is not preparing you for the next step.
The educational system doesn’t prepare you to negotiate, to know how to pay your taxes, to discover your passions, to have quality relationships, to attract customers around an activity, to be valuable to those around you. The educational system doesn’t prepare you for any of these things, and the list can continue.
The educational system prepares you to be a slave. For 10 years you have to sit between four walls and behave in a certain way. And those behaviors are vital for what happens after you leave the educational system.
Staying between four walls is a behavior. Talking only when you are asked is another behavior. Being treated with grades from 1 to 10 is another behavior. Behaviors that most of the time have no connection with the way you should develop, as a human. Rather, they are related to corporate slavery with simple rules: you work at least 8 hours a day and 5 days a week, a pyramidal system in which you advance depending on how much time you spent there, a fixed number of days off work, etc.
If all of this seems normal to you, it means that the educational system has managed to educate you in the direction of corporate slavery.
And it seems fantastic to me that you are blinded by the fact that the above-mentioned rules and the importance of education should cling to each and every person, given that people are so unique and different.
I’m looking at the most simple differences between introverts and extroverts and I can tell you an extrovert works fantastically well in a team, with people, while an introvert works marvelously remote, when they are alone and factors to disturb them are as few as possible.
And before I move on, I have a situation that I think about and still haven’t reached a conclusion. I’d love to know what you think about it too.
The educational system educates everyone in the same direction. But some people manage to break the importance of education and create their own rules. And here I have the two ideas that I still try to comprehend properly:
- If there are a few people who have managed to create their own rules, it means that everyone could do that. Correct? And that makes me think that the system is developed for those people who are lazy, non-creative, and so on.
- At the same time, perhaps the educational system, by not encouraging (for example) creativity, not everyone has been able to develop a creative side, and those who have not been able to do it, had to continue with the rules of the educational system.
The false importance of education and diploma
The diploma is a sort of end game to which we all want to go and work as crazy to get there.
It’s the most stupid illusion. You work like a madman for a cardboard, and by doing this your attention is only on the cardboard, not a set of skills you need to acquire.
And they use a diploma as bait works so well that we are willing to do anything to get it. More than that, we are willing to do anything without thinking for ourselves.
I’m thinking about my experience in the colleges I’ve been through (and I have not finished).
After finishing high school, I chose to go through the College of Automation, Computers and Electronics. All I wanted to learn was programming, but to do that I had to learn chemistry, physics and other irrelevant information. After a semester I made the decision to change the college. And I got to Finance and Banks, passing through a similar experience. I only did it for two out of three years.
It’s been confirmed to me how irrelevant this information is when, a few years after that experience, I discovered the job market and the things businesses want from an employee.
As a front-end programmer (because that’s what I wanted) you need to know HTML, CSS and a JavaScript framework. And these things are mandatory. Then, other programming languages come in, but chemistry and physics don’t have anything to do with it!
Coach, nutritionist, trainer
When you’re bored and want to give yourself a title that’s telling you more about how bored you are, you’re thinking of investing a sum of money in non-formal education and, at the end of it, you are offered the same piece of paper that certifies who you are.
If at the end of the college the diploma gives you a general title, now things are changing.
It seems to me stupid how some people choose to spend a few months (or a few years) and pay thousands of euros to an institution just to have access to an experience and to have the title of coach, nutritionist or trainer.
And I don’t find it stupid because it would be bad. It’s fantastic to help others in each of the three contexts.
But I find it stupid to think that the diploma makes you a coach, a nutritionist or a trainer. Moreover, I find it stupid to invest so much money in such a direction, when, in fact, that direction gives you nothing more than just information organized in a simple manner.
Everything I’ve learned so far, I’ve learned because I wanted to understand things or be able to do things.
You get to be a coach when you help people, not just because you have a diploma. And when you learn how to help people get real results that are in their best interests and that they can meet their needs. The same applies to a trainer or nutritionist.
And I totally agree with the fact that the institution can teach you such things, but the raw information that an institution offers you is available for free anywhere on the internet. And if you focus on the abilities I mentioned at the beginning of the article (negotiate, know how to pay your taxes, discover your passions, have quality relationships, attract clients around an activity, be valuable to those around you), you will get access to valuable people who will provide you with the information you are looking for.
We are so dazzled by diplomas that we often think otherwise and the importance of education gets ruined.
I had a friend who is the kind of man who works hard for the things he wants. His will is so strong he can train for ultra-marathons and finish them. But when it comes to the importance of education, he prefers to go to an institution that can offer him a diploma.
I remember him having gone through a coaching training course of several months and another eight-month NLP course, each costing at least 2,000 euros.
Instead, here’s an alternative.
How would it be that instead of giving 2000+ euros to trainings and courses, you do a little research, find the information you need to get started, and then use the 2000 euro to find out for yourself what happens there?
First, you will not even reach such a large amount of money. Second, you’ll understand all by yourself what’s going on.
It’s like when you want to talk in front of people, but you choose to go through a course called Training of Trainers just because you are offered a diploma and you call yourself a trainer. Instead, you could choose any book that talks about the skills of a trainer or a public speaker, read the book, summarize it, and start talking to people taking into account what you read there.
Or do you know so little about yourself and you are so misguided about your own person that you need all these diplomas to remind you who you are?
The value of curiosity, passion and perseverance have nothing to do with the importance of education
Curiosity, passion and perseverance. Are they related to the importance of education in any way?
None of these three things will be offered to you in a formal educational system. And non-formal educational systems start from the idea that you are already curious, passionate and persevering. So, it is your responsibility to do something in these directions.
We are at the point where, if you have the curiosity to discover things, you will come to discover your strongest passion. And if you know your strongest passion and understand how you can use it to help others, the only thing missing is perseverance.
Be curious to discover your strongest passion and then work constantly in that direction.
I will break the formula in three pieces to help you process it better:
- Be curious;
- Discover the strongest passion;
- Work constantly.
Being curious is a state of mind that, if you don’t have it, you should invest in its development. Curiosity is the state of mind that makes you always want to discover, to understand how things work, to be able to remove the mystery behind a mechanism.
Curiosity is connected to the way you discover your strongest passion.
To discover the strongest passion, you have to invest time and energy in experimenting with all kinds of activities. The more you experience, the better you understand the types of activities to which you have access and to whom you have a particular call. Curiosity will help you invest as much time as necessary (perhaps even a few years) until you discover your strongest passion.
And once discovered, all you have to do is understand how you can use it to help those around you. And you will have to work constantly in this direction.
In the end, you will have results such as personal and professional satisfaction, a lifestyle built around your passions and financial independence. And you will only come to them with patience.
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” – Einstein
We are educated in such a way that we want to have large amounts of money. And when we don’t have access to the respective amounts of money, we link their lack to our mood and suddenly we feel less happy.
Being successful doesn’t mean making a lot of money. Success is connected to many other things, and money is a result of being successful. Moreover, the big amount of money that many people dream of becomes part of your reality only when you manage to develop a service or product that reaches many people. And I bet the educational system doesn’t teach you that. Instead, it teaches you that it’s important to have a lot of money.
Success can be related to relationships around you. How well you can help someone. How much others appreciate your paintings. How much you can do from what you want to do. And each of these things is not connected to a fantastic amount of money. That doesn’t mean you’re going to starve, but you’re not going to get rich overnight.
And I recommend that you don’t go on the road with the need to make money, whether you are 20 or 45 years old.
Start your adventure without too much focus on the importance of education defined by the traditional system, but with the way you want to be successful and connect this desire to your passions. Probably the beginning will be difficult, but once things start to work, the satisfaction will be incomparable.
With love and optimism,
David