Up to now I’ve mainly focused on ways you can set yourself up for success in the future, I’ve covered a variety of topics around budgeting and investing for your future. This week, I’d like to go back and talk about the importance of self education and how you can start.

I’ve talked briefly before about the importance of financial literacy, which is very closely related to self education. However, I don’t just want to focus on money here. The reason, in my opinion, that self education is so important is because the typical schooling path that most of us grew up in and continue to go through, doesn’t properly teach us how to manage ourselves in the real world. I think education is important, but I think there are many problems with schooling that need to be addressed. The biggest is how we are taught.

Growing up we are taught that our grades mean everything, and that we need to get good grades on tests in order to be successful. This couldn’t be further from the truth, I hate tests, not because I’m a bad test taker but because they don’t benefit you in any way. Real world experience is way more valuable. Schools focus on teaching you subjects that most of us will never use in our lives (I’m mainly talking about K-12th grade). Where the schooling system fails is real world practicality. Why weren’t we taught how to do taxes? Why weren’t we introduced to personal finances? There’s so many important topics that we are never taught, and then we graduate and are just expected to figure everything out.

School teaches us that we should go to college, get a boring 9-5 job that you hate, and then work that job until you are too old to enjoy all the things you wished you could do while you were young. I’m sorry for anyone taking that route but that’s bullshit. I want to enjoy my life while I’m young enough to do all the things I want to do. What schools don’t tell you is that this is all possible.

There are tons of educational books, YouTube videos, and cheap online courses/ seminars that teach you how anyone can do whatever it is that you want to do. For some people you may want to be rich, for others you might just want to make a living, and for people like me, you just don’t want to work your whole life. Which is cheaper then most people think by the way.

This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll end by saying that you can do whatever you want to do in life, so never give up and never listen to what other people say. Live your life to the fullest, educate yourself, and enjoy the short time you have because you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.