It is your life.
What determines your success in life is not what you learn in your head, but what you learn in your heart. When education is "free," the deepest truth learned is that life is already paid for - the world owes it to you.
Only, that "truth" is not true at all.
You could choose a different path.
You are well able to take charge of your own learning. You decide what is important to learn and what is not.
But learning that creates value doesn't just happen. You have to work at it, commit yourself to it, and make your work valuable.
When you are doing something fascinating, something that takes skill and effort and that gives the potential of a return, suddenly, learning what you need to know to accomplish your purpose becomes part of being successful!
But there is more. Sitting in a classroom desk year after year becomes very boring to most teens. Sure, you learn things that are important, but it doesn't seem real, it doesn't have a purpose right now.
Real learning comes when the people in your life need you, when they need what only you can provide. When your genius solves the problem, when your labor provides the food on the table, when your skill gives the people you care about a better life, that is real learning.
Self-directed education, then, begins with a purpose. You want to accomplish something of value, and so you reach for the knowledge and the skills you need. When you have accomplished your purpose, you know you have added value to your life and to the lives of those around you.
In your teenage years, you want to take your hobbies and interests and turn them into value that people desire to have for themselves - business-based learning.
When you start your own business, you have gained an intense motivation to learn everything you can to be successful. The wonderful thing is that you don't have to earn a lot of money right at once. You have a chance to grow in your business, because, after all, your parents are still there for you.
And while you're making money, you're also learning the craft of your business, and writing skills and math skills and bookkeeping. You're on the Internet, searching and marketing. Your presenting yourself as a sales person. You are skilled and sophisticated.
When you are running your own business, you are the one deciding what to learn and when and how much. All of your learning is important for what you are doing right now. You see the effect of what you just learned immediately in business success. And best of all, you are paying for your own education.
The world is no longer giving you a "free" ride.
You are directing your own life.
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Maybe you have a student at home and you want to know that they can write effectively both in entering college and for life. Or maybe you want to learn to write (and teach writing) well. Check out the Writing Course at The Writing Conservatory. Help yourself freely to anything you see.
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