I graduated college in June 2011. In the seven years since I travel, worked, learned, and made massive forward progress as a person. I have had multiple big life changes and made significant progress towards mastery of different skills. I feel very proud of the work I have done since 2011 to move towards the life I want to live.
Which makes it interesting to look back at the seven years before 2011. From 2004 to 2011 I went through high school and college. I grew up, had some interesting experience and took modest steps into adult life. But compared to the seven years after college I did almost nothing.
During my time in high school and college, my market value barely increased. In 2004, at 14, I was working summers as a vineyard laborer. In 2011, at 21, I was qualified for little more than that. My degree helped me get a shot at a bookkeeping job, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for it.
Looking back, I wonder how I could have made use of that time in learning valuable skills and moving closer to mastery if I was actively engaging with life, instead of passively going through the motions in school. I wonder where I would be if this was year 14, of being the active driver of my life, instead of year 7.
I can’t help but think of all the time that I wasted going through pointless conformity exercises instead of pursuing the life I wanted. And I can’t help but think of people other than me going through the same thing and how much value is being destroyed by the millions of young people going through the same process today.
Right now there are millions of people that are intentionally spending their days creating nothing of value in the name of learning. Instead of creating products, learning marketable skills, and moving closer to mastery, they are struggling to sit through pointless lessons on a government curriculum.
As a society, we are systematically and intentionally forcing people to waste almost a quarter of their lives. Imagine how much better we would all be if that wasn’t the case.
Leave a Reply