“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music–the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
–Henry Miller
Life is better when you live it for things outside yourself.
It amazes me how much I used to enjoy certain things until I went to college. School ruined a lot of it for me.
Let me explain:
I have always had a passion for music and history. I loved them both so much I couldn’t decide between the two when I went to college, so I double-majored. I did all of my research on different historical periods and figures in music.
Interestingly enough I hated every second of it.
When I graduated, I quit researching history, and I quit researching music. I think in the back of my mind, the thought was if that’s what I was gonna have to do for a living, I wanted nothing to do with it.
I graduated five years ago and have been struggling to find my fit in a career ever since. I have had a lot of time to think, and I believe I’ve figured out the problem.
I didn’t hate the work: I hated having my hands tied.
“You can’t write about or research anything you want – you are required to tie it back to this particular point and make an argument about how it conforms to this idea.”
“It doesn’t matter that your subject has very little source material – you have to make it 30 pages (rather than making it as long as it needs to be and no longer).”
How many of you went into college to study something you had a deep passion for, only to come out the other end hating what you once loved?
I don’t think you suddenly realized you hated the subject: I think you hated being boxed into unrealistic parameters and expectations.
Nowadays, if you want to do research on a topic outside of school, you can, and you can make it as long or as short as it needs to be. Also, it can be about whatever you want it to be.
Do you want to turn it into a podcast instead of writing? GO FOR IT! Do you want to interview people and draw conclusions from their ideas? Do that.
As long as you aren’t making stuff up and deliberately lying to the rest of the world, you can do whatever it is you want to do in whatever subject you choose.
You will never have your hands tied, parameters set, or asinine expectations to meet like you had in school. You don’t hate your subject, and you don’t hate the work you thought you wanted to do. You hated being boxed in, required to do things that bored you to death or robbed you of the joy of what you once loved.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If there was something you used to love doing, something about which you were insanely curious, I encourage you to pick it up again.
I don’t think you lost your love for it – I think you just got the wrong idea of what you were expected to do in the real world in your field of study.
(These are simply thoughts I needed to work out yesterday. Feel free to skip today’s post, as it is rather selfish. However, if you, for whatever reason, read all the way through this post, think about where all the signs in your life are pointing; ask yourself why you are hesitating going down the road.)
What do you do when all the signs are telling you to go a certain way? Why don’t you just go?
All the aptitude tests, interest assessments, and personal inventories tell you to go do this one thing, but still you hesitate.
Is it because you don’t know the next step to take? No, because you know the next step – get a graduate degree.
Is it because you don’t know the field in which to get the degree? Maybe…you do have trouble choosing between your varied interests.
Is it because of what you read and hear? Perhaps so.
“Professors don’t make a lot of money.”
“Most professors are adjuct, so they have work at multiple schools without receiving benefits from any of them.”
“Colleges are slowly dying – it’s hard to get a job at one, and it isn’t the most secure form of employment anymore. The cost of college is keeping people away, and the student loan crisis is going to cause all of them to fail.”
“You may be teaching in a field you love, but the students might not care about the material.”
“Half of the Ph.Ds out there are working in fields unrelated to their studies.”
Or perhaps it’s internal. Students are borrowing small fortunes without thinking to study things (or party but still somehow get the grade) that won’t guarantee them a stable job and a livable wage. That is something in which I cannot, in good conscience, involve myself.
Is it because you might have to stop working, taking a severe pay cut in order to attend?
Are you afraid you’ll fail? Perhaps you are worried you might get the degree, but you won’t be good enough/smart enough/talented enough/hard-working enough to be the best, which means you might not be sought out by the people who need the expertise you went to obtain.
Wheat doesn’t grow out of the ground, ready to grind into meal for the creation of bread. It comes with a bunch of extra stuff you don’t want in your loaf. You must first separate the chaff from the wheat.
The same is true with ideas: good ideas don’t just happen. If you wait to have a good idea, you will never have any ideas at all.
You won’t know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea if you have no ideas.
Ideas are simply ideas; let them flow through you, without judgement. Afterwards, you can determine the ones that might work from the ones that definitely won’t.
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How do you identify it?
Seth Godin asked the question, “Where are the spots [in your personal/professional/creative life] in which you are most afraid?”
Find the places and things you are afraid of, and determine why you are afraid of them. Then you can identify what you need to go work on.
“Begin with the thing that scares you.”
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I have decided that this blog will be dedicated to helping others live a more effective, curious, and creative life. To that end, I believe we should start with basic and universal principles of living a good life. There is one book I wish I had read before I began college: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey.
I first read the book when I was a junior at the University of Southern Mississippi, but I did not take it seriously. I simply believed I had more important obligations. Little did I know that had I practiced the fundamental principles contained within the book, I would have achieved more than I could have dreamed at 24 years old.
These are the seven habits:
I will be exploring these in-depth in future posts. I hope that you will be inspired to live a more effective life as you follow along.
Why did tutoring become something other than exploring one’s curiosity? According to Wikipedia, “Tutoring began as an informal and unstructured method of educational assistance, dating back to periods in Ancient Greece…[where] the main goal of the tutor was to impart knowledge to the learner in order to help the latter gain proficiency in the subject area.” They did not exist to help students who were struggling, but instead served as teachers who passed on knowledge and wisdom to pupils to make them better citizens of Greece.
At some point, tutors became a tool for anxious parents concerned about their student’s falling grades, rather than a source of information and inspiration to satisfy a student’s curiosity. Now, the thought process is, “I’m struggling and need to get my grades up, so I should hire a tutor” rather than, “this subject is so fascinating to me that I cannot get enough information at school and must learn more. Who can help me?”
About the only time this actually seems to happen is when a student seeks out a private teacher in a creative field, such as music or art. You don’t go to a private music teacher because you’re doing poorly in band; you go because you are so invested in your craft that you want to master every aspect you can.
(You could argue that SAT/ACT tutors also don’t help you when you are doing poorly, but I have yet to meet anyone who is passionately interested in standardized tests).
What is tutoring for? What could it be for?
Is every single person born with the potential to be creative?
Yes.
So if we are all creative in some unique way (and we are), what would happen if we all stopped working in areas or jobs in which we felt obligated, and we all started working in our own areas of creative genius?
Does each of us have the potential to succeed in our unique creative gift? Is it that many of us never get the chance because of environmental factors or fear?
Could the marketplace support 100% engagement by all creatives? I think so; creativity doesn’t have to be writing, art, or music. Some people are creative in areas of building, business, leadership, plumbing, carpentry, or any other area that a modern society needs in order to thrive.
Food for thought.
One of my all-time favorite literary creations is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. It is a story that grew up at the same time I did, and it still brings me great joy today. Because I know it so well, and because it doesn’t overstimulate my mind as I am trying to wind down, I tend to read it before bed. While reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I was struck by the inadvertent focus on passions in the first few chapters.
Two different ideals on passion are illustrated in the book. Arthur Weasley, the father of all the red-headed Weasleys, is obsessed with all-things Muggles. He “collects plugs,” and his wife thinks him crazy for it. The Weasley twins, Fred and George, are known far and wide for creating mischief and mayhem wherever they go. I want to unpack this a bit more.
Arthur Weasley has followed his passion (non-magic people) and made an entire career out of it. He works for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office in the Ministry of Magic, protecting the Muggles he loves from witches and wizards who would do them harm. His hobbies at home are all based around Muggle items, from cars to plugs and electricity. And yet, even though he has followed his passion, his family is impoverished.
Throughout the series, we are constantly reminded how little the Weasleys have because their father seemingly has no ambition. I don’t believe this is the case; he simply followed his passion down a deep rabbit hole without ever paying attention to how he could monetize his curiosity.
Career coach Dan Miller often talks about the three-legged stool model of work: for it to work well, there must be passion, talent, and a way to make money from it. Arthur has failed to build that third leg of the stool, and his family has suffered from it. This is by no means a warning against following your passions and talents; it is simply a reminder that you must pay attention to how you can make a living from them, or else you simply have a hobby.
Now let’s turn our attention to the Weasley twins. There is no doubt that they are brilliant witches and wizards. They hold their own plenty of times against other witches and wizards in combat. Not only that, but Hermione Granger herself comments at one point on how impressive and advanced their magic must be for their magical gag products to work.
They are obviously immensely creative and talented in their passions, which seem to be mischief-making and comedy. Yes, it gets them in trouble at school, but only because their school, like our own modern educational system, is a place to sit quietly, obey, and pass the end-of-year exams. Their mother, Molly, is constantly chastising them about not getting enough high exam marks, about causing too much trouble, about not being ambitious like their father and choosing comedy and invention over working for the Ministry.
How is that for irony? For one, government work, whether magical or not, has never been the most creative of workspaces, nor, in my experience, do many people in government tend to be overly ambitious and concerned with making a difference in, or leaving a mark on, the world. I find it fascinating how closely this relates to us in the real world. Our schools stifle creativity and individual differences among their students; we encourage them, not to pursue what they excel in, but to pursue what will pay well and be the “secure,” as if such a thing even exists anymore in the information age. We focus on improving everyone’s weaknesses to make everyone more like the average student, rather than focusing on strengths so that we can all stand out and achieve our unique purpose.
If the Weasley twins had followed their dad’s example, or their mother’s advice, they would never have lived up to their true potential. By book six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the twins succeeded in creating Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, opening up a highly successful magical joke shop, and becoming fabulously wealthy in the process.
Let’s take a lesson from the Weasleys today. Have the focus of Arthur Weasley, but the ambition of Fred and George. I strongly encourage you to follow your curiosity wherever it leads. Ignore the naysayers, but keep in mind the idea of the three-legged stool; all three legs must be present or you only have a hobby, like Arthur Weasley. Find a way to monetize and maximize your obsession, and you will be successful beyond your wildest dreams.
Read a book.
A real book.
Made of paper.
Don’t skim it; sit down with a book and wrestle with the material. Have a notebook, pencil, and two pens at hand while you do it.
The basis of every education, and the most important skill you will ever learn in your life, is reading. If you can read, comprehend what is written, analyze it, and then talk about it, you have the potential to learn anything you want.
The skill of reading will train you to hold multiple ideas or arguments in your head at one time; you can determine what is valid; if it is biased; lacking in evidence. Reading will protect you from being overly influenced by marketing, advertising, political rhetoric, fear-mongering, and anything else designed to persuade you before you’ve had a chance to analyze and think about the information being given.
Educate yourself by reading. If you struggle with reading, find a tutor who can help you read easier, and then start the process! Write in your books: circle, underline, turn down pages, write notes. Keep a notebook full of ideas and questions that come to you as you read. This will not only keep you engaged, it will allow you to start combining your own thoughts with the ideas presented to you and make the knowledge you are gaining truly yours.
Now quit reading this and go read.
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