dream | act | succeed

We have all experienced the difference between learning under pressure and learning in a fun and positive environment. We have all experienced the need to learn something we do not even wanted to learn in the first place and ended up forgetting all about it in the time shortly after. “School, University“, those words are the torturous reminders of a very dark time in all of our youth. Can you find yourself sitting in one of those classrooms again? Has your mind traveled back in time? Can you see your old pencil case, your tiny arms and all those classmates around you? Shaking in fear and hoping that the teacher will pick someone else to do the vocabulary test right in front of the class?

Oh dear God, even just thinking about this makes my mind go crazy. There was so much fear, panic and stress. For me personally, school was a nightmare! I had good grades, I was hard working, but it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t any good! Only later things got better. After my apprenticeship there were only written tests at school, meaning that there was no need to fear being picked any longer. And with knowing that, life became indeed a bit better. But the pressure, man, the pressure stayed. At school, the pressure was never particularly high, but that changed at university pretty quickly. The pressure I have experienced there, made me sick. I struggled with it all my way up to the masters degree and actually, it was not really getting any better. I just figured out ways how to deal with it, at least 99% of the time.

The thing about learning is, that nobody showed us how to do it properly in the first place. It was just expected that we would know. That learning is something we all just have somewhere in ourselves.

For me, and that’s just my personal opinion, the whole school system here in Germany is far away from being good. There are things in life you really need to know, but nobody is teaching you that at school! And even if they try, it would be the wrong way anyways. I do not want to change the system, yet, but at least for me, this was the starting point of making matters worse. The schools I have attended did not taught me the things that I needed to know. They made it pretty hard for me to push through without actually loosing my head.

That there needs to be pressure in life sometimes is of course a necessary thing. And sure, we can’t live without it. But there needs to be a more healthy approach towards things.

Learn how to learn without pressure

Just ignoring the pressure and moving on? Staying hard and do not give in to our feelings? Sure, our society is showing us that way. Never show your weaknesses, never tell others that you struggle. And well, actually that is a great idea towards things. But there is one person that needs to know the truth, and that is you. You can lie to your partner, you can lie to your family, but you can’t lie to yourself.

To be continued tomorrow.

See you next time!