I Hate School

I was going to try to be productive today, but it didn't quite work. Sometimes when I have a lot of things to do and one thing stubbornly resists doing, I just give up. Usually, I can go on working forever as long as I'm making progress, but once the progress stops, I tend to stop. It's funny how that works, even when we know what we're doing is far from impossible. I remember being different at one point, being so eager to tackle the hard stuff. Maybe I've gotten lazy over the years.

I think it has something to do with a learned fear of uncertainty. In school, most people have to pick up some basic time management skills. We have to break assignments down into chunks that fit neatly into time slots that we shove between classes and other activities.

But what happens when we have no idea how long something will take, or if it's even possible? Most of us aren't used to that. It's scary. What if you give yourself x amount of time to do it, and that's not enough? Deadlines can't be missed so casually. What if you invest a bunch of time into it and it doesn't pay off? In the real world, taking risks is usually beneficial, but in school risk aversion is usually the route to success. It's strange how it's just so backwards.

[sep]

I was going to write more on this, but I think I'll save it for another day.