School doesn’t prepare you for life.

You cannot learn everything from school.

A raging question that has been on my mind is whether school adequately prepares you for life, and through careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that is does not.

It is clear that we need an education, that is obvious. However, I have found that we are being taught subjects by people who do not have any knowledge of what they’re teaching. Business teachers that have never owned a successful business, English teachers that have never written a best selling book, art teachers who have never painted a masterpiece. We cannot all be masters in what we teach, but we should learn from those masters instead. I firmly believe that school prepares us to be employees, slaves in the making. School does not prepare us to become employers, legends in the making.

When you repeat something continuously, it soon loses its meaning. If you watch a sunset every afternoon, eventually it’ll just become another sky. Similarly, if you wake up, wake up, wake up – you soon forget why you’re doing it. We wake up every day with no motivation to go to school. This teaches us to dread work. We’re becoming burnt out by pressure and no one seems to care. The workload piles higher and our interest breaks down. It is difficult to wake up ready for a day when you don’t even know what the purpose of it all is anymore. Truthfully though, we haven’t known for a long time.

School does not give you any direction in life. The amount of people that go on to do exactly what they are passionate about are minimal. The amount of people who leave school knowing what they want to do for the rest of their lives is even more minimal. School teaches you that you need to study, get a degree, and find a job with a decent salary. School does not teach you to study your interests, get a degree in something you know you love, and find a career that you’d be happy having, with no salary. We are taught to become greedy and we are taught to chase after a false perception of success – all thanks to the methods that school advises.

I find it alarming how the world around us is adapting and changing at a rapid pace, and yet we’re conforming to the teaching methods used centuries ago. Nothing has changed in our education system, and yet we’re being propelled into a future without any stable structure below us. It can be argued that the people who went to school are the same ones changing the world, but that wasn’t because of school, that was because they were determined to learn outside of what school could teach them. Personally, every valuable thing that I am fortunate enough to know, is because I went out into the world, made mistakes, and learnt from them.

Sure school provides a place to network, build relationships, stimulate the mind and form the basic building blocks to life, but we have to question whether these building blocks are stable enough or if they’ve already collapsed and we don’t know it yet.

Being beautiful is overrated?

“Beauty has so many forms, and I think the most beautiful thing is confidence and loving yourself.” – Kiesza

I will talk about the idea that “being beautiful is mostly over rated.” I have chosen to discuss this topic because I strongly disagree with it. Being beautiful isn’t MOSTLY overrated, the idea around the meaning of being beautiful is COMPLETELY overrated.

The word “beautiful” in the dictionary is defined as ‘pleasing the senses of the mind aesthetically.’ I was mesmerized by this definition and I spent several days thinking about the meaning that was presented to me, and considered the definition that society has presented everyone. When I, or anyone, thinks of the word “beautiful”, the first thought that comes to mind is a persons physical appearance. This false perception of what it means to be beautiful is like candy being fed to everyone with empty calories that will never fill us, and yet we gobble it up and accept its artificial fulfillment. Did you know that one of the leading causes of eating disorders is the insecurity of not being enough, beautiful enough, or attractive enough? How ironic. It is also a leading cause of depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. Did you know that there are over 120 different “beauty” magazines published every single year. Magazines that objectify women and display words such as ‘affordably sexy, beauty kits, beauty products, guide to gorgeous, sexy style’ – these words tell us a story that is far more concerning than anyone is willing to acknowledge. Words that inform us that we cannot be beautiful on our own, and that we need products and assistance in some form to become beautiful or feel beautiful. These words flash in front of us daily, and although we don’t always acknowledge them, our subconscious mind internalizes them. Words have a deep power, they influence our thoughts and actions and they swarm our subconscious mind like an infuriated bee. Overtime, we begin to feel the impact of the words that flash in front of us. Not only through magazines, but through advertisements on social media, television and in our daily lives.

When you grow up in a world that now promotes women in power, equality for women and women with a voice – you begin to realize that women are a force to be reckoned with. A force that is engulfed with passion and drive. A force that is powerful on its own without the need to be hidden behind what is somehow defined as “beauty”. However, it’s also a fact that the world will never accept women this way without telling us that we have to look a certain way to be accepted or worth something. I know that everyone wants to be beautiful, it’s every girls dream, it’s my dream, it’s my dream to be seen as beautiful by people because I feel that is the only way I will be truly accepted in society. But I also know that with beauty comes competition, backstabbing, dishonesty, egocentric personalities and a loss of touch with reality. When you are seen as beautiful, you are taken advantage of, You are seen even more as an object, you are a thing of pleasure rather than a human being with aspirations and goals. You become a trophy rather than a success. It’s a catch 22. If you are not beautiful, no one listens to you or takes you seriously, but if you are beautiful, no one has good intentions and you’re nothing more than a prize. Beauty to me isn’t about the amount of makeup you wear or the amount of attention you receive. To me, It is beautiful to overcome something. It is beautiful to never give up. It is beautiful to be able to say no. It is beautiful to be brave in times of heartache. Is is human to want to be beautiful, but it is divine to accept beauty for what it truly is, even when the world screams a different definition.

So how do we overcome this obstacle? How do we counter the issues that I have brought up? We can’t, because frankly, the world is far too consumed by idols and people in power who endorse this false perception. We can, however, teach our children and future generations that beauty isn’t what the world says it is and that it is beautiful to love yourself.

So no, being beautiful is not MOSTLY overrated, it is completely and utterly overrated if we are talking about society’s definition. But if we are talking about the actual definition, it is the most exciting thing in the world to possess beautiful, imperfect, flawed, honest and genuine qualities. Don’t strive to be looked at like the sun, strive to be looked at like the galaxy has been planted beneath your fingertips and embezzled amongst your bones. That is where true beauty lies, and it is so very underrated. But my words mean nothing in a world that prefers a pretty face over a smart mind.