While perusing Facebook and Twitter today, researching companies for my work, I ran across a post that read something along the lines of, "School prevents me from having a life." My gut reaction was to roll my eyes. Then, I thought about how many times I've heard that line, or a similar line before, and how many times I read it nearly daily. Not only do people complain, presumably sometimes tongue in cheek, that school ruins their lives but I'm pretty sure it's too difficult, it asks for too much, etc. Considering these qualms and complaints, and the volumes of them, made me wonder if it's true.
Let's discuss...
First let's talk about the statement, "School prevents me from having a life." We must begin by defining "life." Obviously, the individual did not literally mean life, so I'll work under the presumption s(he) was referring to a social life. Okay, fair enough. Sure, school keeps you busy so you don't have time on the weekdays to do much more than study or participate an extracurricular (IF you even have time for that).
But wait.
Isn't school the reason you have a social life to begin with? Didn't your first friends because of school? Didn't you learn how to socialize with others in a school setting? How dare they make you learn to function, or try to function, in the social world. Jerks. Without school, it's hard to say what kind of social life you'd have to begin with. Sure, you meet kids at daycares and learn some social skills there, but is it really the same? You might learn to play with kids, cool, but what else? If you can speak with someone on an intellectual level it runs the conversation dry. One can only build so many legos.
Well, elementary and middle school weren't tough. Plus, I didn't have a need for a social life. Now that I'm in high school/college, school just gets in the way.
Life is just too tough, isn't it? Being afforded the opportunity to get an education, what a drag. Again, you gain a social life through school. You want to hang out with your high school/college friends, yet they wouldn't exist if you never went to school. Want a social life instead of school? Fine, drop out. Good luck supporting yourself, though. You'll just get a job at McDonalds? That's a helluva a life to shoot for. School is a necessity. Is a time consuming necessity? Yes. But put it in perspective. You know what comes after school? Work. At work, you don't get snow days, spring breaks, summer vacation (sans teachers), etc. You work and work and work and work. And depending on your job, you just may have "homework" to do to get paid. Can't live without that green. Furthermore, guessing such people are between 16-20 (as many 21/22 year olds realize they'll miss that meandering thing called school)..you have PLENTY of time to not have school. You're barely statistically a quarter way through your life, if that.
Okay, but why do we have to take such difficult classes or classes we don't want to take?
Cliche time: Life isn't easy. It never way, never is, and never will be. It's a challenge; a wonderfully frustrating but ultimately satisfying challenge. You want to complain about school? Go talk to a homeless person struggling to find his or her next meal. You think they'd like to switch with you right now? These classes are there to shape you into a tougher person who can face adversity and not end up on the streets. These tough classes are there to push you to open your horizons and see the world from a broader scope. These class are there to help you find your strengths and your weaknesses, and to help you find what you like. These classes are there to help shape your life. Did I enjoy taking history classes? No. But it helped me understand that I wasn't meant to be a historian.
People who succeed aren't successful merely because of skill. They work hard everyday to achieve their goals--regardless if the work is easy or not.
Is college expensive? Yes it is. But how many people do you know don't get nostalgic when reminiscing about their college years? How many people do you know who have good jobs yet didn't get to college? I'd wager not too many. We live in a world of instantaneous gratification--I want it now. Don't stay the course, stay YOUR course and wait for the more satisfying gratification. People want to blow off high school or college now to live, but I can guarantee you being able to live a gratifying life in your adult years will be much more impacting and lasting than having great teenage years. Do you really want to live paycheck to paycheck, but say, "hey, my teens, those were the times"? I certainly hope not. You have a great opportunity to not only impact your life but others. Take it.
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