A place that promises to enrich us with the knowledge we need so that we can take on life. I remember being a straight-A student most of my time at school, keen on staying at the top of my class as if it were some type of competition whose winners would get to succeed in life. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, and I would have to come to learn it the hard way. Those are the things that allow us to see that life is more than just black and white, and that, ultimately, we hold more power over our lives than what we were told growing up.
There are some things in life that I admire that I never had the chance to learn about in school because they contradicted the way the school taught.
Here are ten life lessons you’ll never learn in school:
Number ten: life isn’t fair
. You better get used to it. The most important lesson we learn at school is that hard work pays off. You put all your effort towards achieving the promised reward when you enter the current world, only to fail later. You doubt whoever told you that exerting yourself would produce results. Eventually, you realize that events are beyond your control and that people will abandon you just when you need them.
Number eight: self-care over working over time
As students, we are told that if we want to aim high and have a good future, we must work hard and stay up late. But how can we ensure the future if we reject the pleas for rest from our bodies? Science has shown that when we work past our physical limits, our output and productivity go down. We learn from experience that exerting effort alone does not translate into productivity. It’s acceptable to take breaks. We are merely humans. We are not machines.
Number nine is collaboration over competition
Since we learn in school that getting the best grades equates to receiving prizes, the majority of us will set lofty goals for ourselves and accomplish them, winning over the other students and earning the respect of our teachers in the process. Intense competition is present. However, real life demonstrates that we are not always independent beings. We may occasionally require the assistance of a person with different skills when working on a large project. Genuine success has never been experienced by anyone alone. Knowing when you’re good at something is helpful, but it’s much more important to know what kind of help you need to reach your goals.
Number seven, independence, is liberating
Our dependence on other parents, teachers, and so forth is something that school teaches us. We spend the majority of our time attempting to figure out the best remedies for particular problems without realizing what is ultimately crucial. In essence, we learn things we’ll never use while assuming others are more intelligent than we are. When we get used to relying on the intelligence of other people, we also get used to making all of our decisions based on what they say.
Number six, you have nothing to lose
You learn in school that you might have to retake a year if you receive a bad grade. You could be suspended if you miss class. The list keeps on. Every action has a result, as the lesson we are taught. Therefore, while we are younger, we learn to think twice about every decision and consider what we stand to lose. But as reality sets in, we realize that trying something is never a bad idea. We realize we have nothing to lose and that, in the worst-case scenario, we merely revert to our former situation. For instance, if we attempt to launch a business, we are aware that there is nothing to lose and just potential gain in doing so.
Number five: your job doesn’t define you
The main purpose of school is to teach us what we need to know to get a credential. We received a brief general education before receiving the graduation hat and bidding us farewell. Then we are thrust into a world where people come from many walks of life and have jobs other than those that have been listed since elementary school as the ones with the highest financial rewards. We also understand that people are more than just their jobs. We live in a culture where people can change careers quickly because they have access to the necessary information online and have mastered their craft. This is especially true in the information age.
Number four: is the value of good friendship
The first place we learn the value of friendship is in school. But it is frequently only taught in the context of academic learning when friends are made to help each other get through the experience of being a student. After we graduate, people start going their separate ways. It’s true what they say; friends come and go. To live a real life and deal with its pains, you have to know how important a strong friendship is.
Number Three: your happiness depends on you in the classroom
Our pleasure is based on what others think of us and the impressions we make on our teachers, so they will reward us appropriately. However, when you step out into the real world, you are left on your own and must learn how to get by. You only have yourself to please for the first time. Expecting others to tell you what makes you happy and expecting someone else to make you happy are both unrealistic expectations.
Number two: not everything is about you
We learn to focus on ourselves in school, but perhaps a little too much. We are instructed to consider our objectives and struggle for them in a rat race that, if we let it, seems to extend into our adult lives. We easily get into the trap of believing that life revolves around us. Because we experience the world through our own particular set of eyes, everything that happens must involve us in some way. We are blind to everyone and everything around us. Because our eyes are fixed on the target, everything that occurs around us only serves as a diversion from our goal.
Number one: perspective is key
We learn that a fact equals a justification system from the typical textbook. They present us with a screenplay for a story that has a viewpoint and instructs us to consider it the only one available. Hitler was the most horrible person ever to walk the planet. That may be the case, but very little is spoken about the Second World War. The nations fighting against Nazism, known as the Allies, also committed some terrible crimes, such as being some of the first to employ nuclear bombs in conflict.
Not to suggest that one side was worse than the other, but rather to draw attention to the fact that we are never given the chance to consider what might be on the other side and are only ever exposed to one side of a coin. When we step out into the real world, we see several sides to every person in every circumstance. We deal with people in our friendships, at work, and in love relationships who might seriously hurt our sentiments if we are unable to convince them to consider the other side of the story.
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