If Your Mix-tape Is Tangled Up

School's On

Every season a new cycle begins and with that, soon a lot of people will be unhappy. Like myself many years back, they will feel, that this is not it. The study of field they chose or the way it is taught does not satisfy. What's even worse, a lot of the people, who will feel unhappiness or in other words an unknown burden lingering on their heart (or shoulders for some) - don't even know what the better alternative would be.

When I finished high school I knew I had to continue my formal education and apply for the university. "Had". My high school prepped us for that, and so did my parents and grandparents. "You need to have a formal higher education if you're going to achieve anything in life," was in essence what they portrayed. I mean I'm not saying that formal education is unnecessary or wrong. I'm saying that at least after high school it should be time for young people to be able to make up their own minds about where to go and what to do. And some can and do.

I didn't know what I wanted and since I also saw only a few alternatives - to go study something, have a go at construction work or join the service sector and become a valued member of the restaurant industry - there seemed not really much choice. Besides, again I didn't knew what I wanted (maybe only to please my parents, so I would get my allowance and could socialize with friends and new people).

Does It Really Matter?

This was back in 2004 and over the years I have talked to many people about that. What I have discovered, is that I'm not so special, in that there are really a lot of other people who have had to deal with the same issues. I know that these are first world problems - compared to hunger, social and cultural exclusion, pollution, war, health care problems, having no electricity, no drinking water, or dealing with poverty, the problem of if/what/when to study, having already achieved a secondary education, seems like it doesn't matter.

Lee Scoresby said in the book "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman:

"Seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed."

The reason I bring up the problem I had over ten years ago and a lot of people had and still have, is that it makes me angry that there are a lot of years wasted, a lot of potential bygone, because I didn't knew better. Because the educational systems emphasized only certain types of "academic" ability - certain uses of verbal and mathematical reasoning.

Sir Ken Robinson said (in the article "Grassroots learning revolution") that:

"Education should engage the whole student, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically."

Would you say that your education in primary and secondary school did that for you? Every part of it, fully? Even spiritually?

When we're about 18 years old, enter the world of adulthood and have to start making pretty big choices, more often than not, we're not prepared. And I don't mean, we should know everything by then, I mean we're not prepared because School hasn't taught most of us what to do with the facts that we have acquired. And foremost School hasn't taught us what happiness is, or at least could constitute of. Among other things.

Unlearning Unhappiness

Srikumar Rao talked in May 2009 in a TED talk about hard-wired happiness. His idea was that people don't need to learn how to be happy, because we all know that already, happiness is hard-wired into our being. What we actually do is we learn over life how to be unhappy and this unhappiness is what we need to unlearn again.

At the footsteps of adulthood, or actually any point in life, there may come a point, where you just have no clue or idea of your own on what to do next. What worries me most about this, is the outlook of a prolonged time of inactivity, that seems to be wasting our potential of being fulfilled human beings. It took me about a decade from the point I should have made my own choices to the point I actually started to make them. All because the whole time I had no idea what I should do. I thought indeed, that I should do what I'm told.

Push Pause Before You Play Further

There are a lot of things that can accelerate unlearning unhappiness. But the actionable advice, the simplest thing to do, I would give to my younger self and try to follow now, is this:

Take a break. Express to yourself: What is the healthy pursuit, that excites You? Then follow the spark. And rewind when needed.

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What advice would you give to a person in a similar situation? What has helped you to get going, find out what you wanted and actually do something? I would be grateful to read about it in the comments below.