Advice For High School Students

[Jordan wang]

I noticed that two of Leo's videos conflict with each other, "advice for high school and college students" and "work less to accomplish more"

One of them talked about the best thing to do in order to set up my life in college is to: not join frats, no social groups, eat healthy. Pretty much to do none purpose less activities at all

the other one talked about doing something that is purposeless once in a while is good, and I should find a balance in between purposeful activities and purposeless ones.

So my question is: which advice should I listen to?

Should I find a balance in between the purposeful and purposeless activities, or to do non purposeless at all?

jordan 

[AndreiC]

Balance is something we all need in pretty much all activities including school related stuff.

I see the 2 pieces of advice as a sort of ladder towards something. When you're not stable enough yet, it's a good idea to avoid those things indeed. They have a habit of drawing you in and tend to lead to excess. Excess is purposeless, activities and interests which are not done in excess all have some sort of purpose.

If you're already strong enough to not fall into the excess spiral, then it's a good idea to engage a little bit in everything.

Social groups, so on and so forth are another facet of life and they bring both benefits and costs. If you completely ignore them you'll miss out on some things. If you let them become your master it's even worse. If you manage to strike a balance between these 2 you'll be able to squeeze the most juice out of this part of life and that will help you in all sorts of ways later on.

Most of the people I know which completely avoided the social side of college wound up becoming 17 year olds when they turned 30. The ones that lived in excess figured it's time to grow up and ended up in all sorts of boring jobs acting and looking like 40 year olds. The ones that were just in the middle all ended up in good places. The ones choosing the middle path are extremely rare however, because it takes a lot more effort and strength to not fall on either side. 

As a life strategy, I would compare it to walking on a tight rope. First of all you need to know there is a rope. Second of all if you're to fall, always be ready to push towards the safer side and then get back on.

Edited June 1, 2017 by AndreiC