As long as high schools strive to list the number of Ivy League schools their graduates attend and teachers pile on work without being trained to identify stress-related symptoms, I fear for our children’s health. I am not mollified by the alums of my daughter’s school who return to tell everyone that the rigor of high school prepared them for college, making their first year easier than they’d anticipated.If they make it that far.
High demands and expectations without skill development, encouragement or the feeling of a “win” will lead to resentment. Demanding perfection is exhausting on the part of the person making the demands and on the person of whom the perfection is demanded.
His chief form of entertainment was reading. The last moments he was in a cabin were usually spent scanning bookshelves and nightstands. The life inside a book always felt welcoming to Knight. It pressed no demands on him, while the world of actual human interactions was so complex. Conversations between people can move like tennis games, swift and unpredictable. There are constant subtle visual and verbal cues, there's innuendo, sarcasm, body language, tone. Everyone occasionally fumbles an encounter, a victim of social clumsiness. It's part of being human.To Knight, it all felt impossible. His engagement with the written word might have been the closest he could come to genuine human encounters. The stretch of days between thieving raids allowed him to tumble into the pages, and if he felt transported he could float in bookworld, undisturbed, for as long as he pleased.
Many of us have gotten so used to playing to the expectations of society, of our families,of our friends, and of our minds, that we don’t even allow ourselves to consider who we really are or what we really need. We ignore the callsof our hearts, giving our lives, instead, to thedemands of an outside world built on fitting in.We can stop this, right now. We can choose to listen to ourselves, to heed our deepest callings,whatever they are. We can give ourselves thefreedom to be whoever the hell we want to bein this world. Right now, if we choose to.And why wouldn’t we?
Places of genius challenge us. They are difficult. They do not earn their place in history with ethnic restaurants or street festivals, but by provoking us, making demands of us. Crazy, unrealistic, beautiful demands.
The vision of life is not a "discovery"; it's a "work" and whatever position you occupy demands work. Your life may not be built on your visions if you go high and find yourself doing the vice. Going higher should be a priority; but being aware of the reason for getting there should be the focus!