Week 11 - What Education Requires
As I come into the end of my first quarter, my assignment has posed the question to me, “What does self-education require that traditional education fails to provide?”
Looking back over the past three months, I find a few things interesting. First off, I knew nothing about what the content of my educational path was going to look like when I set off to develop it. I simply wanted to find something that I would find interest in, and reiterated things that are already happening in my life. In developing the survey, I wanted to be able to have a digestible amount of content so I wouldn’t choke on the quantity of what I needed to focus on. I also wanted to find something that I could see myself doing for a sustained period of time.
The books I was presented with were perfect for what I was looking for. Starting out with Man’s Search for Meaning, I was faced with the question, “Why do I do the things I do?” And it was in that question that I realized I have a passion for storytelling. The second book, Atomic Habits, helped me develop a sustainable model that would allow me to build the time in my schedule to get in the routine. My office is now a space of productivity, and the writing comes more naturally. I don’t dread doing the work because now I have built it into my routine, and I have seen my improvements demonstrated in my video production. When I started out, I felt entirely awkward standing in a room I didn’t spend a lot of time in, speaking to a camera with no live audience to engage with. Now, it’s simply my Friday night plans. I come in, speak to my camera with confidence, and I have the video uploaded onto all of my platforms by Saturday morning. The Myth of Sisyphus gave me context to understand that it was in this challenge that I was presented with the reasoning to continue forward, and the concepts of logotherapy helped reinforce those beliefs.
Out of all of the books, Politics and the English Language gave me the biggest wake up call. If you have something to say, simply say it. You don’t need to make it fancy, you don’t need to make it more intelligent than your audience to feign your own understanding of the topic, you simply need to state what is on your mind. Having to write my essays on Wednesday, and then edit and publish them on Thursday has forced me to apply that lesson, and I find that I spend less time editing the more recent entries because I have already found the words that I wanted to speak.
All in all, I would say this first quarter has shaped my mindset to be more successful as I move into the rest of the year. Now, as for the question that was presented to me this week, I think a personal buy in and understanding is what a person needs to be successful in self-education. It’s not because my wife told me to learn something this year, but because I found a pathway I believed in, and was able to quickly recognize progress. Being able to have work that reflects the lessons back to me, and recognizing the progress in myself is an addictive habit. It’s a lot like working out in the morning, I keep doing it because I enjoy feeling stronger. Being able to develop my ability to tell stories, and finding that the stories are coming more easily because of the work applied, is a motivation that can only be found from within and on a personal level.
Moving into the second quarter, I know that refinement is going to be a major focus, so my natural sense of curiosity is piqued to se how I will be challenged. But regardless of the outcome, I am glad I have found a path of self-education that works for me.
