The Potential Downside of College
The right way to get news, becoming the best you, and book advice from the master. — Your #1 Newsletter for Accelerated Learning
“Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of security….The new security will be a belief that …if this doesn’t work out you could do something else. You are your own security.” -Charles Handy
High School is Over: Should You Go to College?
The popular notion in the US today is that if you are a reasonably-competent, ambitious young person, you’d do yourself a disservice by not going right into college at 17 or 18.
“Going to college will increase your lifetime earnings by $1M!”
“Sure, there are people who have built successful, lucrative, happy careers without a college degree, but what’re the chances that you’ll be one of them?”
“You should just get your degree as quickly as possible, the rest of life can wait.”
These examples of (real) advice given by peers, teachers, parents, and guidance counselors are the wrong ways to think about your education. They tend to focus on probabilities and insurances. The probability of making more money increases with a degree for the average person. The probability of needing a college degree to be successful is higher for the average person. The probability of being a lawyer, doctor, or accountant drastically increases with a degree.
But you aren’t a lottery ticket. It doesn’t make sense to think in terms of probability. Unpredictable factors can always arise that can throw off all of your best predictions, and when that day comes, you’ll have to be in the driver’s seat to make the decisions concerning how to proceed forward.
Trending Today…
How On Earth Did Email Newsletters Become Popular Again? —
“The truth is that one of the best things to happen to the news is that it’s being delivered to millions of people’s inboxes every morning. Yes, I’m referring to email newsletters and no, I’m not talking about those awful & clunky marketing ads disguised as ‘news’ that stuffed your junk email inbox five times a week last decade. On the contrary, today’s best newsletters have rabid followings and actually deliver useful information that people look forward to each day.”
Top Stories…
How I Spent The Last 3 Years Becoming Minimalist And Why You Should Too — We all have that old junk we keep because “someday it may be useful.” Will you really ever need it? The answer: probably not. There’s a recent movement towards minimalism and perhaps for a good reason. Here’s Tim Denning’s advice on becoming a minimalist.
This 300 Year Old System Will Help You Become the Best You — Seeking to become the best version of himself, Benjamin Franklin developed a 13 virtue character development system. This program acted as a daily accountability system and helped him achieve his goals. Practicing this system yourself will improve your life little by little everyday. Here’s how you can make and implement a 13-virtue plan of your own.
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet To Writing Your First Book — Writing a book is a scary task. Lucky for us, James Altucher has put together a ‘cheat sheet’ of the things he’s learned while writing his 18 books. The main take aways: 1)Be Honest and 2) Just Do It.
How are you?
We want to provide you with the most valuable content possible. So hit us up on social media with your comments or suggestions, and we’ll get back to you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium. We’d love to connect!
If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please click here to clap it up on Medium!
Interested in what else we’ve found around the web? Check out our M-F Newsletter to get more awesome content from us and others delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up here.
