School Killed My Love For Learning. Self-Education Brought It Back To Life.

I’ve got a very interesting problem this week, both for myself and for you.

How do we regain or revive our love for learning once again?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve completely lost touch of my childish curiosity and my deep, internal, authentic motivation. I’m not talking about the “forced” type of motivation but the one you genuinely had as a kid or a teenager growing up.

The interesting thing is that it tends to happen at the same time for everyone. You have this deep curiosity and authentic motivation up until you head to university, or even worse, full timework. Then it all seems to vanish.

The education system is alright, don’t get me wrong, you can learn some useful information taking the traditional route. But the methodology (the foundation) that the system takes its form comes from the industrialised age which is not helpful when it comes to developing a deep curiosity for learning.

This loss for learning completely goes over most people head’s.

But if you step back from the entire situation, and see it not from a human’s perspective, but from someone that partakes in the system but is not of it you can generally see for yourself.

Before, during, and after people lose their spark.

It’s during those specific phases of preparing for university, studying at university, and the end goal which is full-time work.

Because what you have to realise is that people don’t go to university for no reason. Most people do it because they’re supposed to. However, apart from the unconcious decision, there also is an end-goal. And that end-goal is often an unfulfilling and uninspiring job.

No wonder why those are the phases most people lose their zest for life, right?

One way you can clearly see this from both other people, and yourself, is through the energy of passion. During these phases, there is no passion.

Try it as an experiment.

Go to talk to someone who is a few years into university or full-time work. The responses you get will be shocking. The initial excitement and energy you get coming into this world as a new-born baby, child, then teenager is totally gone. All of which they had prior to partaking fully in the education system.

The brutal fact of it all is how people will read this and simply deny it. Their denying reality. But you get exactly what you want here on earth.

If you want to deny reality, reality will deny you.

Don’t be shocked when reality doesn’t give you what you desire, simply because your beliefs are the opposite to it. That’s not on anyone, but you.

Just simply see it for what it is. Don’t try to analyse or judge it.

See how people who want to learn stuff and think they can learn it well through the certain frameworks that school uses doesn’t revamp their curiosity and desire to learn, but actually slaughters their passion.

It kills their love for learning and their curiosity in that topic of interest.

So, we have a humongous question:

“how do we intelligently navigate through the obstacles we have to regain our curiosity and passion for learning?”.

Let’s first understand why school doesn’t work.

School is all about grades. Numbers, stats, performance assessments. Your worth is simply reduced to a piece of statistic.

I say this from personal experience.

Who remembers results day?

Where everyone would receive their results and the first thing they would do is ask others what they got.

I can still hear it so clearly, other students asking, “what did you get?”.

And I get it. It’s not just about the school system. People do this later on in their jobs, in their own personal lives, and with practically anyone they interact with. But you can’t deny that most of this stems from the system which raised us.

On this there are some things we can learn from video games. One is that video games do learning extremely well. When you start a new game, it’s all based on skill-based matching. Which means that your level will always match the level of the challenge you take.

School is terrible at this. Different students have different skill levels, but all students take the same curriculum.

For the students who are too advanced, the work is too boring and not fun. F

For the students that are too behind, the work is impossible, and therefore, boring and certainly not fun.

I belong to that second group.

But here’s the most important part.

This is the trap most people fall into which consumes them of most of their energy.

Don’t fight, criticize, rant, or try demolishing the “system”. But instead, be self-aware. Recognise internally that there is an external problem. It’s actually got nothing to do with you. All you need to do is admit “this isn’t my definition of education.”

School is about grades. It’s just a reality that should be accepted and not resisted.

One common assumption (belief) we develop is that a high grade means you’re set for life. This is a big problem because this means we determine our entire lives, self-identity, as well as self-worth upon a single grade.

That is predominantly the single factor that displaces your love for learning.

Now, really deep this with me.

Why wouldn’t you feel down? Of course, you’re not going to feel curious.

For the average person, 90% of your mind is spent on pursuing higher grades, while the rest is devoted to entertainment and escapism.

It is absolutely inevitable that you give into distractions.

Imagine giving 90% of yourself into something you inherently don’t care about, how else would you be motivated to keep going? You’re going to find a way to escape, and for most people, that’s through instant gratification.

People don’t try to find a different escapism method, one that serves them better, because anything apart from instant gratification is a hard game to play.

A truthful, but brutal joke, is that I can’t tell you one thing I learned at school that has been useful to me. Not one thing.

School doesn’t talk about things that are actually useful.

How to manage your finances How to master your emotions The importance of meditation The importance of life experience Philosophy Economics Personal development Self-actualisation How to think critically How to focus How to develop mental capacity to deal with catastrophes How to develop a strong and rigid character You can’t find any of those in school.

So, the only way to get out is to take on the burden of self-education.

It’s a must. All on you. Independently.

Solutions

From this, one thing we can’t deny, is that we’re all losing our joy for learning.

Now. If you don’t care about learning, this isn’t for you. But if you do, please take the responsibility to educate yourself.

You don’t need to leave school. But you can sacrifice distraction.

Replace that time to pursue writing, filmmaking, photography, social media (not scrolling content, but producing it.)

Read books and articles, watch podcasts, engage in discussions on life, relationships, self-actualisation, philosophy, timeless advice.

Things that will help you down the road.

Build your mind on business, wealth, emotional mastery, success, etc.

Take action on the foundations and principles you learn from the book, video, course, or whatever medium you consume from.

Challenge yourself every now and then.

If you’ve never meditated, do it for 5 minutes for the next 7 days. If you’ve never worked out, go for a fun run one morning Try it out.

At the end, you have to bite the bullet, despite the costs.

Be a self-taught genius.

Don’t leave school. But navigate through the system and view the laborious and mundane tasks at school as character building.

As for the video games concept we spoke on earlier. Always look to match the level of your skill to the level of your challenge in absolutely anything you do.

Otherwise, you’re back at school. :)

That’s all from me.

See you on the next one.

-Serkan