How do I "flunk" school but become a rockstar human being?

[Lorcan]

In a post I wrote over a year ago called "How Do High school "Exam Results" matter?

 

Here is a notable reply I got from Leo Gura. I have some question in the following of the reply I have highlighted in bold.

 

"They matter in the sense that if you can't discipline yourself to ace a government exam, how you gonna ace the much more emotionally challenging aspects of life?How you show up in life tends to be consistent. I find that people who slack off in school tend to have the exact same attitude towards life. And their lives are shit.That said, of course there is no direct causal link. You could technically flunk school and become a rock star human being, but I wouldn't bet money on that.And none of this is to say there aren't serious problems with our education system. There are! Which is why I recommend taking your education into your own hands. Going WAY beyond the basic curriculum, but also including it.As far as grades themselves, and even entire diplomas, the truth is they virtually don't matter in real adult life. Nobody cares about your grades, diploma, or what school you went to. They care about what results you can generate. And if they DO care, then those are the kind of people and places I would avoid, because it's just a silly status game. Focus on mastering life and business, not on jumping through somebody's hoops like a well-trained poodle."

 

 

 

Question 1:  "if you can't discipline yourself to ace a government exam, how you gonna ace the much more emotionally challenging aspects of life?"

Why would I discipline myself to ace a government exam when that willpower used to discipline myself could be used elsewhere and generate a significantly more results? There is plenty of other things that are emotionally challenging things I can spend my time acing that stimulate more personal growth relative to me than grinding for exams at school. (Example: Running (Marathons), Cold Exposure, Meditation)

 

I perceive a logical fallacy in this statement ""if you can't discipline yourself to do X, how you gonna ace the much more emotionally Y aspects of life?"

X and Y are unrelated.

The answer to that question than simply is "I will do Z, which is equally if not more emotionally challenging than X, also, it is actually relevant to my life purpose and to things I wish to do to succeed.

 

My most important question

Question 2: "That said, of course there is no direct causal link. You could technically flunk school and become a rock star human being, but I wouldn't bet money on that."

Why would you not bet money on it? I assume you said that in reference to the masses. (Anyone who do not do this work)

So how do you "technically flunk school and become a rock star human being"

I see myself becoming a rockstar humanbeing if I continue down the path of self-actualizing, despite flunking school. (Which offer me no value. 1: I do not want to go, or need to go to college. 2: The stuff being taught is mostly unpractical, anything that is practical is highly specific to how one chooses to live ones life.

They say school offers a very "broad" base of information. I think it is the opposite, what is being taught is quite specific and narrow. 

List of habits that I know have since starting this work:

Meditation-Started 2 year ago, had months of consistency backslided for other months, now in 2017 I have a 3 months of 20 minutes a day meditation, I have missed only 1 day in those 3 months. I noticed I was half assing meditation for the past week, I would sit for 20 minutes, but my mind would keep thinking and wander onto things like "when is this session over" etc.

 

Daily Light Strength Exercise- I have implemented some light daily strength exercise, when I was 14-15 years old. I made some exercise mistakes. I used to over train my muscles with too much volume. I used to do pushups to failure, and once I had reach failure, I would go straight to bicep curls, once I had done 15 bicep curl reps of 5kg (heavy for me at the time) I would go straight back to doing pushups to failure.

 

I did this daily for some time, until when day I went to do it and my muscles simply did not function as they usually function, they felt weaker.

 

1-1 half years on, I can now do 30 pushups to failure.

 

Sleeping on the floor - I have made myself comfortable with the slight discomfort of sleeping on the floor rather than a bed.(I still sleep on a yoga mat with a thin blanket over that mat and I have my bed covers and two pillows still, I will remove these slowly overtime to build my willpower)

 

List of habits that I have yet to fully install but I am working on:

 

Early Rising: I am trying to wake up at 4:30am everyday on the weekdays. I set my alarm for 4:30 am every day. I have only successfully got up once so far. (That day felt great, I did not feel tired)

 

Cold Shower/Exposure: I have had long cold shower streaks before, but I relapsed. I have not taken a cold shower in over a month now. My last consistent of streak was some time ago (Over 6 months). I am "supposed" to get up at 4:30am, go directly outside, and pour 2, 5 litre bottles of cold water over myself. I have yet to do this.

 

Consistent Business Research:  I am trying every day now to spend at least 1 hour researching information on stocks/real-estate management/affiliate marketing/online marketing etc. I have been using the site Investopedia for my research.

 

Increasing Local Influence and improving social skills/confidence(especially with the opposite sex): I recently have got into a new friend groups (All male).My interaction with females is limited to "convenient" interactions during class that do not require me to go out of my way to talk to them. Whether that be turning around my chair to talk during a free-class etc.

 

I also often lack to confidence to talk to people where it is not in a convenient situation (outside my comfort zone) to do so. (Example: Sitting down next to a random group of people during lunch break and joining their discussion.

 

I am working on myself. I am aware I have bad habits. I am aware I must stamp them out. So I will stamp them out.

I currently half-ass school. I pay attention in class, but at home, I do not do barely any school-work.

To put this in a metaphor/analogy.

It is like I am being pulled three ways by 3 horses, I have rope attatched to my neck, left leg and right leg.

The horse pulling the rope on my neck is school, the horse pulling the rope on my left leg is self-actualization, the horse on my right leg is my bad habits.

The horse pulling me at my left leg is actually trying to take me where I want to go. When the horse pulling at my neck is not pulling, the horse pulling my left leg is pulling against the one pulling my right leg.

 

I have considered dropping out of school but was advised to stay and school but half-ass if I want.

Which I am doing. Half-assing it gives me more time to focus on investing in my future through mastering life (advanced personal development work) and business (Leaning how to start my own business, invest in stock and real estate)

Is there something I am overlooking about school here?

 

The source thread for the quote I used from Leo gura is below if you want to read the quote from its place of origin.

 

[Lorcan]

What is a solid plan?

(This is just from the top of my head)

As briefly as I can put it:

I know that I want to  generate my wealth. I want to start my own business, invest in stocks, and invest in real estate.

This money will support until i can get money directly correlated to my LP.(A Political Revolutionary whose aim to enlighten/actualize/significantly raise the consciousness for the benefit of the long-term sustainable happiness of mankind)

I believe many previous Political Revolutionaries were mostly funded by other people. I need to do deep study on this subject, however, I think It would be better if I had good wealth going into politics as to not rely on others to fund my ventures.(Of course, maybe I do need other people to help fund, again, I will have to research.)

 

Edited December 7, 2017 by Lorcan

[Faceless]

The enjoyment of life is important. What you hold significant is important. Understanding yourself which is thought is important. 

Everything else is secondary. 

Dont get caught in the motivation through fear game. That will only bring about conflict in your life and will manifest as psychological disorder down the road. 

If You can get paid to do what u enjoy, awesome. If you enjoy it enough you will become good at it or maybe even great, but being great at it shouldn’t be why you want to do it. Doing something u love even if you were not getting paid for it is an intelligent way to live. Getting paid for it is a bonus. 

And finally just live for heaven sakes. Death is always closer than we think. Don’t waste all your precious time in the realm of thought “fear” 

relax friend...inquire into yourself which is investigation into thought and action will become evident.

Remember in an age of leisure it’s important that we enjoy oursleves. If we don’t the world will fall to pieces. Conflict in becoming can be very destructive when everyone of us are slaves to desire. 

Good luck friend 

[d0ornokey]

1 minute ago, see_on_see said:

Forget about making plans for now. You gotta study self-actualization in depth and grow your own consciousness first.

sometimes you need money to survive 

[Girzo]

40 minutes ago, d0ornokey said:

sometimes you need money to survive 

And for retreats, books, courses, etc.

[d0ornokey]

@see_on_see ah getchu. study the map first 

[Lorcan]

I am still pretty lost here guys.

[d0ornokey]

7 minutes ago, Lorcan said:

I am still pretty lost here guys.

how were your grades at your peak? 

[Lorcan]

3 hours ago, d0ornokey said:

how were your grades at your peak? 

Mostly B's, some C's , ussually 1 A,

 

[sarapr]

@Lorcan Make a decision that enables you to have flexibility and freedom as you go on because you might dramaticly change your views on what is important to you long term but then if you haven't left any room for mistakes and exploring your options your stuck and there's no going back so it's better to play it safe in the beginning till you figure it all out then go on and take risks .

Edited December 9, 2017 by sarapr

[Joseph Maynor]

Get through school.  You'll regret it if you don't!  Just bite the bullet and grind through it.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Revolutionary Think]

@Joseph Maynor On the other hand some regret going because precious time was wasted. Of course never just quit without a plan. 

[Dan Arnautu]

@Lorcan If you really were a smart super self-actualizer, you would not waste your time complaining about the school system. You would instead figure out how to do all your school work in 1/4 of the time, while still getting straight A's.

 If you don't think that's possible, that's just your limiting belief. It is possible.

Cal Newport interviewed hundreds of straight A students in research for his books, and what did he find out? All the high achievers he interviewed spent most of their time on their own projects, passions and having fun, and not on getting the straight A's that they were getting.

Now, you might say that those achievers were just "talented" or had a "natural ability to learn fast". NO! Cal goes into a lot of detail showing you how to do the same. Those guys had nothing special. I did it too, and I had mostly bad grades in school. Right now, I spend less than 1 day a week on schoolwork, and I'm getting straight A's. How? By working smart and implementing the concepts Cal preaches.

I'm spending most of my days practicing the guitar, self-actualizing, doing courses, hanging out with friends, meeting new people, going to the gym etc. Not studying for school.

Your intentions and motivations seem to be good, but you are going about it the wrong way.

You are just avoiding taking charge and choosing the easy way out. It would actually take you much less energy to learn how to work smart than to have to explain to everyone for the rest of your life why you didn't finish school.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Lorcan]

4 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

@Lorcan If you really were a smart super self-actualizer, you would not waste your time complaining about the school system. You would instead figure out how to do all your school work in 1/4 of the time, while still getting straight A's.

 If you don't think that's possible, that's just your limiting belief. It is possible.

Cal Newport interviewed hundreds of straight A students in research for his books, and what did he find out? All the high achievers he interviewed spent most of their time on their own projects, passions and having fun, and not on getting the straight A's that they were getting.

Now, you might say that those achievers were just "talented" or had a "natural ability to learn fast". NO! Cal goes into a lot of detail showing you how to do the same. Those guys had nothing special. I did it too, and I had mostly bad grades in school. Right now, I spend less than 1 day a week on schoolwork, and I'm getting straight A's. How? By working smart and implementing the concepts Cal preaches.

I'm spending most of my days practicing the guitar, self-actualizing, doing courses, hanging out with friends, meeting new people, going to the gym etc. Not studying for school.

Your intentions and motivations seem to be good, but you are going about it the wrong way.

You are just avoiding taking charge and choosing the easy way out. It would actually take you much less energy to learn how to work smart than to have to explain to everyone for the rest of your life why you didn't finish school.

Thank you. I will research Cal Newport.

Like money. The more that my money works for me. The better.

Likewise with the time. The more I invest my time into X, I want the results from that time invested to be worth more than the orginal value of the initial time investment. If I am able to only do 20 pushups to failure. By investing 1 hour of time into improving the amount of pushups I can. I expect to get value for my time. I expect than to be able do 30 pushups,40 pushups , maybe 50 pushups. Thus. I get value for my time.

When I invest my time. I want the value of investing that time on X date into Y, to be of higher value to me in the future. Thus profit. I want this percentage increase to be as high as possible. The higher the percentage increase. The more return on investment I get. In this case the investment is "time".

I want say for example, 1 hour of time invested into meditation everyday to generate me X percentage increase over a 1,2,3 year etc period. 

I have already decided a while ago not to drop out of school (but I am still half-assing it to free up more time). 

The reasons I am not going to drop-out of highschool in order of value are:

-Finishing Highschool makes me much employable than someone who has not. (Worth my time-investment. Good return, I can then get my own job, even a low wage job, and start investing most of that money into stocks and my own business. Meanwhile living off my parents)

-Become more respectable.(If I am to be a political revolutionary, and the masses find out I have not finished high-school, this could negatively effect my influence over them.

-Minor positive influence with my parents.

 

This is all well and good. However. I do not see any worthwhile return on investments in doing extra study to get A's in my exams that will give my points for college that I will never use in the first place because I do not need nor want to go to college. Time would be better spent elsewhere studying philosophy, phychology, stocks etc.

Yes. I could possibly optimise my time like you said Dan Arnatu. Those points are not "worhtless", however they are likely to be worhtless. 

So how do I kill two birds with one stone?

I could be possibly do school work in 1/4 of the time, while still getting straight A's.  Yes.

I could become hyper-aware and observent during class (I have nothing else better to do anyway during class, school time is dead time) and learn as much as I can during the lessons. If needed, even spend my lunch break of 45 minutes, studying, everyday. I also get free-classes sometimes, and I have 1 guaranteed 40 minute study class during the week.

What I sacrifice for doing this

-Less time to socialise and interact with other people.

-Some comfort (in the short-term)

What I gain

-Points for college which,  I am unlikely to use, but could possibly use.

 

A strange trade off. But, it seems worth it.

 

As it is. I am not willing to invest time outside of school hours to get better grades in school. During school hours however, I do not mind. As time spent during school is dead-time. When I am sitting during say an English class listening, I have nothing else that I can use to induce personal growth other than paying hyper-attention and being extremely observent of what the teacher is saying and what it means. I could possibly meditate while grasping the academia being taught.

 

[Lorcan]

1 hour ago, see_on_see said:

And if one was an even smarter self-actualizer, they would question the bullshit that school and society impose on them, realize that even "working smart" for something that's ultimately pointless is a total waste of time and energy, and would instead allocate that time for more worthwhile pursuits  

You hit the point I was making right on the head.

 

School is like a prisoner of war camp with some sort of reward system. Work and hard and you can get point. Exchange points for extra food.

 

The Government is a corporation. This corporation has many systems of generating income. One of these sources of income is known as a schooling system or an official certification authority. They make a person do actions of their choice, and at the end, they give them a certificate for completing these actions. Whether the material is practical or not is un-important. It just has to appear convincing. Academics do just the job. They operate these schools in a formal and disciplinary manor. They punish or shame you for not taking the actions they want you to take. They reward you for taking the actions they want you to take.

 

This creates the illusion of "value". They give you brass, and claim it is solid gold.

 

And like most people. You believed it. Your parents believed it, your grandparents believed it.

 

To market their schools, the government use the word "Education" and associate the word education with their business "schools"

 

 At the end of the school course. There if a final exam. The higher you score, the more "points" you get. The more "points" you get, the more "degrees" that become available.

 

A "degree" is a certification from the government that is proof of purchase that "X,Y,Z person has given 10k-20k to us(the government corporation) in exchange for a certification. They have done all the actions required by us to acquire this certification)

 

In some of these degrees, what is taught can be easily used to offer people value in the capitalist system (as what you have learned has practical application in generating joy or money in people’s lives). In other degrees, what is taught is much, much harder to off people value in the capitalist system (either what is being taught has little , if any, practical application , or what is being taught, while it offers you value, is hard to manipulate(by no means up to chance or impossible) in offering value to others. (As there is a much smaller market due to the low consciousness masses.)

 

Perhaps with your philosophy degree specialising in stoicism, you could one day set up your own stoic school and make it an effective business.

 

If you try set up a stoic school in this time? Ha. Good luck. Perhaps one might be able to be set up successfully. There simply is not a demand; or little of it.

 

The Capitalist system works off of supply and demand. It does matter how high consciousness the value you are offering to other people is.

 

The most demand is for shallow things. Survival things, Flashy Things, Tasty Things.

 

Not deep things. Not high-consciousness, self-actualization related services of value.

 

Not in this time.

Do not believe me. I am not even sure I can believe it myself. I could be right. I could be wrong. Who knows? Haahaha

Edited December 9, 2017 by Lorcan

[Dan Arnautu]

@see_on_see I totally agree with that point. Yes, school is a waste of time, but consider the circumstances.

He doesn't have much of school left, so he is losing all the effort that he already put into it, and also, the other downsides are not worth it: conflict with family, friends, employment problems in case he needs a quick job etc.

And it's a high chance he ain't the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, so if he were to drop out, it would backfire real hard.

@Lorcan Don't know what you're talking about. Check out the Dailystoic on instagram. A much higher demand than you would expect. 

Also, don't get tricked into thinking that I give a damn about my philosophy degree, even though I get straight A's.  

I'm studying philosophy right now just to be able to live in Bucharest for 3 years and study guitar with one of the best guitar coaches in Europe. So when I'm giving you advice, I'm not talking out of my ass. I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

All you guys are doing is mentally masturbating and complaining.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Lorcan]

46 minutes ago, Dan Arnautu said:

@see_on_see I totally agree with that point. Yes, school is a waste of time, but consider the circumstances.

He doesn't have much of school left, so he is losing all the effort that he already put into it, and also, the other downsides are not worth it: conflict with family, friends, employment problems in case he needs a quick job etc.

And it's a high chance he ain't the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, so if he were to drop out, it would backfire real hard.

@Lorcan Don't know what you're talking about. Check out the Dailystoic on instagram. A much higher demand than you would expect. 

Also, don't get tricked into thinking that I give a damn about my philosophy degree, even though I get straight A's.  

I'm studying philosophy right now just to be able to live in Bucharest for 3 years and study guitar with one of the best guitar coaches in Europe. So when I'm giving you advice, I'm not talking out of my ass. I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

All you guys are doing is mentally masturbating and complaining.

"Don't know what you're talking about. Check out the Dailystoic on instagram. A much higher demand than you would expect."

"If you try set up a stoic school in this time? Ha. Good luck. Perhaps one might be able to be set up successfully. There simply is not a demand; or little of it."

The point I made is that I can name you thousands of restaurant businesses. Thousands of retailers, thousands of law firm business, thousands of insurance businesses, thousands of medical businesses, thousands of software/IT businesses.

I cannot say the same for businesses directly related to philosophy. I can think of Stefan Molyneux off of the top of my head

The reason for this must be supply and demand. I can see no other reason. I do not know, Maybe I am wrong.

I am aware this is mental masturbation and complaining. I have gotten the value I expected from this thread.

 

[Dan Arnautu]

1 hour ago, Lorcan said:

The point I made is that I can name you thousands of restaurant businesses. Thousands of retailers, thousands of law firm business, thousands of insurance businesses, thousands of medical businesses, thousands of software/IT businesses.

I cannot say the same for businesses directly related to philosophy. I can think of Stefan Molyneux off of the top of my head

The reason for this must be supply and demand. I can see no other reason. I do not know, Maybe I am wrong.

Comparatively, yeah, it ain't as big of a demand for stoic philosophy and it's related practices as for food, sex, technology, medicine etc.

I was trying to emphasize that if one really wanted to start a Stoic Academy, it would be almost 100% a successful venture. One, because the idea has already been business wise validated and second, because of the internet and social media.

With the way the online landscape is right now, Gary Vaynerchuk could take any average painter and make him/her a millionaire. And I'm not exaggerating one bit.