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Yunie75
France
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Hi guys,
I am probably much older than all of you, and I will probably pass as the boring grandma who gives unasked for lessons about life, ;) but I’ll try anyway. What’s the use of growing older if not helping those younger than you on the way? Well, at least I think so.
My memory of school is that of the hand on my watch that moved at a desperatingly slow rate. Except in languages classes, oddly. For me, school was more of an occasion to see my friends and play mischief (nice mischief, mind you, such as exchanging jokes and comments about the teacher with my friends on pieces of paper. That sort of things.) I was not really interested in what I was being taught. I was always complaining about the huge amount of homework I had to do, and how it was eating up all my time. By the end of secondary school I was really tired of studying, and eager to start in “real” life.
But now, looking back, I regret not paying greater attention at school. I know I was taught things, but I cannot remember them, and I end up looking them up on Wikipedia today. Isn’t that a total loss of time? School gives you a citizen’s education. It teaches you how to live and interact with each others, and it gives you a basis of necessary knowledge. If you believe my experience, everything you are being taught today will be of use to you someday. Converting quarter of liters to centiliters, for instance, because you are making a recipe. Or you may meet very bright, cultured people, be burning to talk with them, and find you are not able to hold a conversation, because they are talking about that war in that history lesson you overlooked, or that book in English you chose not to read. Feeling like an ignorant is quite painful, believe me. Spare yourselves this uselessly unsettling experience, and drink in all the information you can. Knowing things can only be a plus. It gives you more self-esteem, and it places you among the ranks of “the educated ones”, subtly lifting you up the soccial ladder, thus allowing you to start in “the active life” with better chances of earning a good living. I know it’s hard to stuff ten-pages geography lessons you don’t care a dime for into a brain, but here’s a trick I discovered during my university years: whenever I had to learn things I was definitely not interested in, I repeated myself : “Woah! That’s so incredibly interesting!!” on and on, until my brain finally relaxed and let the information in. Not only that, but I had created the desire to know that thing. Try, it might work for you too.
I know too many adults today knowing they lack knowledge and regreting it. Really. Now’s the time to think about your future-you, and make things smoother for him or her.
Time… I remember thinking I had none. But come to think of it, I was often playing video games, often hanging out with my friends, and I could start and finish a book in one afternoon. Those things I can no longer do. I can’t spend hours on a video game because I have to cook the dinner and iron and fill my tax form and look for an hotel and plane tickets to prepare my holidays and still work. My friends leading the same kind of life, we can hardly find time to see each other. And I can no longer take the luxury of “wasting” one whole afternoon on a book. So I read bits by bits, and it takes much longer.
If you’re living with your parent(s), can go to school without needing to take a part-time job to help the family, and are healthy and sound, you are in a favourable position now. Let your parents take care of the adult things a bit longer and take advantage of that blissful lack of stress and responsibilities to fill your part of the contract : using school to make yourself a polished, educated citizen of the world, able to fend for himself, whose parents can be proud of.
Take care.
Yun
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