Learning about Learning

Oh, school. My whole life I've been striving to get good grades, to please the teachers and make them like me (was a total teacher's pet over here, not going to lie), to do whatever it took to ace that test, sacrificing living for homework. This entire philosophy got me through grade school, through high school, through my first year of college.


And then this sophomore year of college happened.


I found myself in classes I didn't necessarily care for, realizing that for the first time that I wanted to choose friends over homework because THAT is where life is, and that this was OKAY. It was my own choice, and I suffered the consequences of this. Got an incomplete in one of the classes and have to finish the coursework in the summer...and I'm absolutely dreading it. 


Why? There is no reason that I should be struggling. I most definitely don't deserve this second chance from this professor, yet she gave it to me anyway. Why am I struggling so much? I have the time to do the work, I have the means, I most definitely have the time, but I still am faced with dread when thinking of the endless discussion questions and meaningless books. I'm sure to someone, the course is interesting, but to me...it's like ripping out my fingernails one by one. Everyone has had this struggle with something in their life, I'm sure of it. 


I myself am struggling with wasted time. Why am I studying "insert class here" when I could be helping people, loving on people, learning more about God and pursuing God so that He better equips me to love people? This is the core of my struggle. The struggle of my heart against what is expected of me. 


That's the core of it. My heart and entire being struggling against what is expected of me.
Still not sure what to do with that realization, but it's nice to know.

I'm starting to believe that everyone out there struggles with this concept of our very natures rebelling against what is put in front of us. This is why people find themselves in jobs that they hate, in life situations that they don't like, etc. But do we do anything about it? I sure didn't. I don't know. I want to explore the Bible and see what it has to say about this concept, because I'm sure it does, because it talks about EVERYTHING (which is awesome), I just don't know enough to be able to put anything here. I'm sure it has something to do with patience (which is a wonderful trait that I am just...not there yet) and the fruit of your labor (as in a degree), but it is still a struggle. 

How can I find peace and life in a situation that I don't like. How, during these last two years of school, can I find life, so that it is not merely academics, but that I am living?

This is what this summer is about. Discovery. Learning. Finding balance. Balance is so so so beautiful, and treading in this new adult world makes me feel very unbalanced (because I like control...it happens). Balance. Even the word gives me hope. 

Balance. Where you're fully aware that you could fall to either side and in any direction, yet you remain steady, wobbling slightly, but never falling all the way. So good.  

Tangent Thought:

I miss learning for the sake of learning. I really do. I love learning, and somewhere during this semester I forgot that. I wasn't being nourished with knowledge, and I slipped. You know what my favorite college class so far has been? Sports and Society in Ancient Greece. It was so cool to learn about this entirely different culture, and of the Olympics, and just...everything involved in it. For some reason, that class mattered. We (the students) were explorers of a different culture, and I loved sharing my learnings with family and friends as I told them about the discus, about the nudity in the Olympics, about the tossing of the bread. I miss learning. I miss learning about flowers, and the neighbor down the street. I miss reading books, and how to books. I miss being taught a new skill, and being able to use this new skill to show or help someone else. 


I've been struggling for a long time with academics, if you didn't notice. When I was in high school, I wrote this poem, and I find it appropriate for this post. This poem is still particularly powerful for me. I wrote it while I was taking AP Calculus. I was good at math until Pre-Calculus, then it just slowly went downhill from there. 

How does calculus better me for life?

I don’t see the point (x, y)

I come home and find Mom

Writhing with agony with the news

Of Grandma’s terminal cancer

And I slam on my knees and scream out

“Why God?!  Why?!”

Finding the derivative of “why” won’t give me the correct answer

No cure for Grandma, no way to help Mom through her pain

Even math has its limits