Are Pre-Packaged Beliefs Standing in the Way of Your Happiness?

I am disassembling the pre-packaged stories I grew up with around ‘education is the key to success’ and needing to have a profession (doctor lawyer indian chief) or at the very least a paycheck job. Progress has been slow, but it is happening. I’m finding ways to turn my skills and years of experience to less traditional paths which I enjoy more.

On the tail of this revising my pre-packaged story a much bigger issue has come up around my daughter’s education. (She is 14) We have withdrawn her from the traditional public school route for many reasons, and she is studying and learning stuff at home. For the most part she is happy and excited with her different lifestyle. She is bright and curious but not traditionally academically inclined. She has clearly stated she doesn’t want to go to college.

I want to teach her and show her that there are other creative and nontraditional ways to make it in the world.

But I suffer anxiety around the fact that she will not earn a high school diploma. Is getting a GED enough? Is it effective? Does she even need to worry about that? She is a very talented artist and writer and I would much rather see her pursue her blissful ways than to be stuck in classrooms doing work and learning things she doesn’t want or care about because some government has decided it is necessary or wants to program her with it.

Some of the richest and happiest people I know didn’t finish high school or never went to college. I know that it is possible to succeed without those things… I want to give her the best opportunity I can to have a really different and wonderful life, but I am still scared. It is a lot of responsibility to be deciding things for her that will effect her entire life and be less than certain about the rightness of the choice.

Lillith and Leah-

I grew up in a school system that valued the routine. Most of my graduated class in high school attended Ivy Leagues. I myself went to NYU, which was my dream school when I was operating in the consciousness of a highly intellectual, value-juding high school.

After one semester at NYU, I dropped out.

Since then I have found two colleges (The Evergreen State College and Goddard College) that have tailored to my unique education desires (i.e. I can build my own major and pursue my degree on my time). In the last three years, sine leaving NYU, I’ve discovered that I actually am a highly intellectual person, and while independent learning has provided me with a lot of amazing lessons (nothing like being your own task master to learn discipline), I actually want to be in an intelligent learning community where teachers and peers expect something of me. Now, I don’t think everyone who drops out of conventional college comes to this conclusion (and I would HIGHLY recommend either of those two schools above for your daughter, Lilleth), nor that everyone is made for the college track. In fact, some of the most brilliant people I know are the ones who found their niche and stuck to it, education aside (you’ve mentioned these type of people, Lilleth). In my opinion, having sampled a diverse array of colleges (and still in the process of determining my future via college), getting a degree for the sake of having a degree is just plain stupid. And at the very least, a kid should take a year or three off between high school and college to learn about themselves, the world, and what truly brings them alive. No one knows a damned thing at 18, and then we’re funneled into a school system where we’re supposed to decide what to dedicate our lives too…. No, what’s more important is finding joy in life, and if that means working as a waitress part time and climbing trees the rest of the time, so be it. Something good will come of it, simply because you’re one of the happy people in the world. The happy people are truly the ones that keep this ship afloat.

Sorry if I blab. I really like these conversations.