It’s funny, but when asked about things learnt that have served to be the greatest contribution to their lives most people will not mention anything from schools days.
Have you noticed this? I can say that the things I have learnt which have served as a platform for personal growth did not come from the classroom.
Basically, the education system with its tunnel-minded curriculum frequently taught by blinkered, know-it-all academics, having fallen for the “I’m an expert” trap is designed to programme young people to fit into boxes; Work for corporations (and suchlike) when they graduate.
In a way, that means, you’re going to have to make up for an absence of really learning about life!
Here are 7 things they never told me at school (but could have).
1. The Importance of Communication
We were never told about the importance of communication or trained in this area.
Essentially, effective communication brings together so many different things and therefore serves as a great life-handling tool for personal achievement: Communication for forming great relationships, teamwork, solving problems, and successful project completions… are all routed in effective communication.
2. Everything is the expression of consciousness
Consistent with the “Laws of Attraction,” life shows up as a consequence of where you are consciously at: Your thoughts, feelings and emotions, attitude… all contribute to how life ‘shows up’ for you.
So, if you don’t like the life you’re living then change these things. For example, if you find yourself in victimhood circumstances (the symptoms of victim consciousness) then look at where you are consciously at and change these things.
3. Natural health
Like other schools we had our share of economics teachers, but no one ever told me that the best investment in life you could ever make is in your health.
Because of corporate interests, the education curriculum generally focuses only on pharmaceutical approaches when it comes to health.
Alternative practitioners and great pioneers with their potentially life-saving approaches based on natural health have been ignored, suppressed or even unjustly ridiculed.
There are 4 things that support good health.
They are: Good nutrition, regular exercise, a positive outlook in life and maintaining a clean, stress-free environment where possible, but sadly, these things are not given enough attention.
Sadly, when many people are told that they have an incurable disease, in their ignorance they fail to make the retrospective connection: How over the years they have lacked the above 4 things and now have to pay the price as a consequence…
4. Applying philosophy
The above box represents all the things someone says in one day (or any given time period).
The darkened area is the tiny proportion that represents the things said that have significance or really matter: Do you see yourself in this model?
In school we never talked that much about the things that really matter in life.
No curriculum was ever set up to have conversations or discussions with our teachers on how to handle life effectively: Dealing with life’s recurring problems such as how to make relationships work, or address important subjects from a higher perspective… i.e. the things that have significance to all of us.
Sadly, most people grow up, possibly out of school habit, seldom talk about life and spend much of their time talking meaningless nah, nah, nah nothings… and look at the result: A world full of people going nowhere in their lives, just like the soap opera characters on TV…
Philosophy doesn’t have to be just mere armchair discussion. It can be used creatively to practically apply ideas in life, hence the empowering phrase ‘applying philosophy.’
5. Being yourself
You don’t have to just be some corporate cog-in-wheel care of the education system’s grooming.
I have learned that being yourself is your biggest strength. More than ever, particularly on the humanitarian front, the world needs people able to think for themselves: Innovation and adaptability are keys for world transformation.
Realize that there are other ways, different to an education system that stifles self-expression, creativity and imagination and then churns out well-educated robotic clones unable to really think for themselves.
As Albert Einstein once said “Real thinking is to think the unthinkable…” History has shown how the tiny few outside-of-the-box individuals think for themselves and how they have contributed greatly to humanity…
6. Having a deep and genuine love for yourself
How do you expect to have a deep and genuine love flowing out there with your family, friends, groups, communities, the environment or all things spiritual… and then have it return on you when you had not began that deep and genuine love right there with your own self?
This is consistent with 2 above that life shows up as a consequence of where you are consciously at.
7. The past is your biggest enemy in life
I was never told at school how to learn to realise that my past can run me instead of me running it: Fear, anxiety or an unwillingness to be creative and adventurous… are the consciousness-destroying operatives here. But YOU are the author of your life…
Because this subject could go into great lengths I’ve decided to make it something for another day. Simpler to say to be in present time, the only place where life exists is something to be cherished and mastered.
Yes, there were other things they never taught me at school but I’ll leave it there, at least for now.
By Paul A Philips, Guest author