May 03 2008
What you were Not Taught in School
We have always been taught backwards. This coming from a teacher.
I remember going into the guidance office and they said “Coach Kip, what would you like to do with your life?”
Heck I didn’t know, at that time I still wanted to be a professional football player. I had no idea what my career was going to be. I stammered “A teacher I guess?”
And so it was, from that point on I was defined by what I wanted to do. I was put in classes that helped me get into college. I was advised on the best colleges for teaching. I went to one of the best Universities in Michigan for teaching, Northern Michigan University. I then promptly dropped out of the teaching program.
Why?
I was beginning to see how that would define me. As I got into my teaching classes I found that students were already getting cynical. I found that I was not getting support for math and sciences in our open discussions in class. I was finding it difficult to write papers on philosophies and issues that I did not agree on. I would not let it define me.
I got a degree in physics instead. Why? I thought physics was cool. I had no idea why. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I just liked science and physics. So I graduated.
I got a good job but it did not satisfy me. Heck I lived in Russia for four months, I lived in Argentina for a month, and in Dubai for three months (I stayed in the original buildings that are shown with the arrow). Besides that I traveled all over the United States. Still not very fulfilling to me. It was not me. It was not the definition of who I wanted to be. So I went back to school.
I got a teaching degree along with a mathematics degree. I became a teacher. I was lucky. I did not get a teaching degree because I wanted a job, I got one because that is who I am.
So what does that mean to you?
Define - Learn - Do.
The better question that the guidance counselor could have asked is “what do you want to be?” I may have answered a professional football player, but hopefully she would have steered this 145 pound weakling in a different direction. I could have decided who I wanted to be. What I wanted to be. How I wanted to live. What I wanted to have. I could have formed a decision on that
Define
Instead of finding something that you want to do, define who you want to be. Once you define who it is that you want to be the steps are more simple. The steps are also in reverse order that we usually take them in.
Learn
Once you have defined yourself you learn how to become that person. For some it is education, and schooling. For some it may be an internship. For others it may simply be setting a stricked budget to get what they want.
Do
Once you have learned how to get what you have defined for yourself it is a matter of doing it. This can be very difficult because you are bound to make mistakes. Guess what, making mistakes is part of living. It tells you that you are alive. So make mistakes.
Let me give you a little secret. Instead of doing what it is that you think you need to do to get to your definition of life…that sentence and the process is very difficult to understand, I know I have done it that way for a long time…FIND SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE IT BEFORE AND DO WHAT THEY DO.
I am not yelling, just using it for emphasis. Don’t reinvent what has already been done. Just find someone who has the life that you want and copy what they do. Will that make you successful alone? No. But it will get you started. It will then be your task to make it your own. Making it your own, and living the way you want to live will be your success.
You’re not saying anything different than your teachers did - they asked you to define , learn, then do.
So you didn’t know what you wanted - few do that early on.
But your advice is no more helpful to that teenager in the guidance office- and not one whit different.