G.
Stolyarov II
Contemporary formal
schooling inculcates a counterproductive and often stressful fallacy
into millions of young people – particularly the best and
brightest. The fallacy, which undermines the lives of many, is that,
when it comes to learning, productivity, and achievement, you have
to get it absolutely right the first time. Consider how grades
are assigned in school. You complete an assignment or sit for a test
– and if your work product is deficient in the teacher’s eyes, or
you answer some questions incorrectly, your grade suffers. It does
not matter if you learn from your mistakes afterward; the grade
cannot be undone. The best you can do is hope that, on future
assignments and tests, you do well enough that your average grade
will remain sufficiently high. If it does not – if it takes you
longer than usual to learn the material – then a poor grade will be
a permanent blot on your academic record, if you care about such
records. If you are below the age of majority and prohibited from
owning substantial property or working for a living, grades may be a
major measure of achievement in your eyes. Too many hits to your
grades might discourage you or lead you to think that your future
prospects are not as bright as you would wish.
But this is not how
the real world works. This is not how learning works. This is not how
great achievements are attained. It took me years to figure this
out. I was one of those students who insisted on always attaining the
highest grades in everything. I graduated first in my class in high
school (while taking honors and Advanced Placement courses whenever
they were offered) and second in college – with three majors. In
high school especially, I sometimes found the grading criteria to be
rather arbitrary and subjective, but I spent considerable time
preparing my work and myself to meet them. While I did engage in
prolific learning during my high-school years, the majority of that
learning occurred outside the scope of my classes and was the result
of self-study using books and the Internet. Unfortunately, my
autonomous learning endeavors needed to be crammed into the precious
little free time I had, because most of my time was occupied by
attempting to conform my schoolwork to the demanding and often
unforgiving expectations that needed to be met in order to earn the
highest grades. I succeeded at that – but only through living by a
regimen that would have been unsustainable in the long term: little
sleep, little leisure, constant tension, and apprehension about the
possibility of a single academic misstep. Yet now I realize that,
whether I had succeeded or failed at the game of perfect grades, my
post-academic achievements would have probably been unaffected.
How does real
learning occur? It is not an all-or-nothing game. It is not about
trying some task once and advancing if you succeed, or being shamed
and despondent if you do not. Real learning is an iterative
process. By a multitude of repetitions and attempts – each
aiming to master the subject or make progress on a goal – one
gradually learns what works and what does not, what is true and what
is false. In many areas of life, the first principles are not
immediately apparent or even known by anybody. The solution to a
problem in those areas, instead of emerging by a straightforward (if
sometimes time-consuming) deductive process from those first
principles, can only be arrived at by induction, trial and error, and
periodic adjustment to changing circumstances. Failure is an expected
part of learning how to approach these areas, and no learning would
occur in them if every failure were punished with either material
deprivation or social condemnation.
Of course, not all
failures are of the same sort. A failure to solve a math problem,
while heavily penalized in school, is not at all detrimental in the
real world. If you need to solve the problem, you just try, try again
– as long as you recognize the difference between success and
failure and have the free time and material comfort to make the
attempts. On the other hand, a failure to yield to oncoming traffic
when making a left turn could be irreversible and devastating. The
key in approaching failure is to distinguish between safe failure
and dangerous failure. A safe failure is one that allows
numerous other iterations to get to the correct answer, behavior, or
goal. A dangerous failure is one that closes doors, removes
opportunities, and – worst of all – damages life. Learning occurs
best when you can fail hundreds, even thousands, of times in rapid
succession – at no harm or minimal harm to yourself and others. In
such situations, failure is to be welcomed as a step along the way to
success. On the other hand, if a failure can take away years of your
life – either by shortening your life or wasting colossal amounts
of time – then the very approach that might result in the failure
should be avoided, unless there is no other way to achieve comparable
goals. As a general principle, it is not the possibility of success
or failure one should evaluate when choosing one’s pursuits, but
rather the consequences of failure if it occurs.
Many contemporary
societal institutions, unfortunately, are structured in a manner
hostile to iterative learning. They rather encourage “all-in”
investment into one or a few lines of endeavor – with uncertain
success and devastating material and emotional consequences of
failure. These institutions do not give second chances, except at
considerable cost, and sometimes do not even give first chances
because of protectionist barriers to entry. Higher education
especially is pervaded by this problem.
At a cost of tens of
thousands of dollars per year, college is an enormous bet. Many think
that, by choosing the right major and the right courses of study
within it, they could greatly increase their future earning
potential. For some, this works out – though they are a diminishing
fraction of college students. If a major turns out not to be
remunerative, there may be some satisfaction from having learned the
material, and this may be fine – as long as it is understood that
this is a costly satisfaction indeed. Some will switch majors during
their time in college, but this is often in itself an extremely
expensive decision, as it prolongs the time over which one must pay
tuition. For those who can afford either non-remunerative or serial
college majors out of pocket, there is the opportunity cost of their
time – but that is not the worst that can happen.
The worst fate
certainly befalls those who finance their college education through
student debt. This was a fate I happily avoided. I graduated
college without having undertaken a penny of debt – ever –
largely as a result of merit scholarships (and my choice of an
institution that gave merit scholarships – a rarity these days).
Millions of my contemporaries, however, are not so fortunate. For
years hereafter, they will bear a recurring financial burden that
will restrict their opportunities and push them along certain often
stressful and unsustainable paths in life.
Student debt is the
great disruptor of iterative learning. Such debt is assumed on the
basis of the tremendously failure-prone expectation of a certain
future monetary return capable of paying off the debt. Especially in
post-2008 Western economies, this expectation is unfounded – no
matter who one is or how knowledgeable, accomplished, or productive
one might be. Well-paying jobs are hard to come by; well-paying jobs
in one’s own field of study are even scarcer. The field narrows
further when one considers that employment should not only be
remunerative, but also accompanied by decent working conditions and
compatible with a comfortable standard of living that reflects one’s
values and goals. Money is ultimately a means to life, not an end for
its own sake. To pursue work that requires constant privation in
other areas of life is not optimal, to say the least – but debt
leaves one with no choice. There is no escape from student debt.
Bankruptcy cannot annul it. One must keep paying it, to avoid being
overwhelmed by the accumulated interest. Paying it off takes years
for most, decades for some. By the time it is paid off (if it is), a
lot of youth, energy, and vitality are lost. It follows some to the
grave. If one pays it off as fast as possible, then one might still
enjoy a sliver of that precious time window between formal education
and senescence – but the intense rush and effort needed to achieve
this goal limits one’s options for experimenting with how to solve
problems, engage in creative achievement, and explore diverse avenues
for material gain.
If you are in heavy
debt, you take what income you can get, and you do not complain; you
put all of your energy into one career path, one field, one narrow
facet of existence – in the hope that the immediate returns are
enough to get by and the long-term returns will be greater. If you
wish to practice law or medicine, or obtain a PhD, your reliance on
this mode of living and its hoped-for ultimate consequences is even
greater. You may defer the payoff of the debt for a bit, but the
ultimate burden will be even greater. Many lawyers do not start to
have positive financial net worth until their thirties; many doctors
do not reach this condition until their forties – and this is the
reality for those who graduated before the financial crisis
and its widespread unemployment fallout. The prospects of today’s
young people are even dimmer, and perhaps the very expectation of
long-term financial reward arising from educational debt (or any
years-long expensive formal education) is no longer realistic. This
mode of life is not only stressful and uncertain; it comes at the
expense of family relationships, material comfort, leisure time, and
experimentation with diverse income streams. Moreover, any serious
illness, accident, or other life crisis can derail the expectation of
a steady income and therefore render the debt a true destroyer of
life. Failure is costly indeed on this conventional track of
post-undergraduate formal schooling.
It may be difficult
for many to understand that the conventionally perceived pathway to
success is in fact one that exposes a person to the most dangerous
sorts of failure. The best way forward is one of sustainable
iterative work – a way that offers incremental benefits in the
present without relying on huge payoffs in the future, all the while
allowing enough time and comfort to experiment with life-improving
possibilities at one’s discretion. Diversification is the natural
companion of iteration. The more you try, the more you experiment,
the more you learn and the more you can apply in a variety of
contexts. Having avoided the student-debt trap, I can personally
attest to how liberating the experience of post-academic learning can
be. Instead of pursuing graduate or professional school, I decided to
take actuarial and other insurance-related examinations, where the
cost of each exam is modest compared to a semester of college – and
one can always try again if one fails. In the 3.5 years after
graduating from college, I was able to obtain seven professional
insurance designations, at a net profit to myself. I have ample time
to try for more designations still. My employment offers me the
opportunity to engage in creative work in a variety of capacities,
and I focus on maximizing my rate of productivity on the job so as to
achieve the benefits of iterative learning and avoid the stress of an
accumulated workload. I could choose where I wanted to live, and had
the resources to purchase a house with a sizable down payment. Other
than a mortgage, which I am paying ahead of schedule, I have no debt
of any sort. Even the mortgage makes me somewhat uncomfortable –
hence my desire to pay it off as rapidly as possible – but every
payment gets me closer to fully owning a large, tangible asset that I
use every day. In the meantime, I already have a decent amount of
time for leisure, exercise, independent study, intellectual activism,
and family interactions.
My life, no doubt,
has its own challenges and stresses; anyone’s situation could be
better, and I can certainly conceive of improvements for my own –
but I have the discretionary time needed to plan for and pursue such
improvements. Moreover, the way of iterative learning is not fully
realizable in all aspects of today’s world. Comparatively, I have
fewer vulnerabilities than debt-ridden post-undergraduate students of
my age, but I am not immune to the ubiquitous stressors of
contemporary life. We continue to be surrounded by dangers and tasks
where it is truly necessary not to fail the first time. As
technology advances and we come to life in a safer, healthier world,
the sources for life-threatening failure will diminish, and the realm
of beneficial trial-and-error failure will broaden. The key in the
meantime is to keep the failure points in one’s own life to a
minimum. Yes, automobile accidents, crime, and serious illnesses
always have a non-zero probability of damaging one’s life – but
even that probability can be diminished through vigilance, care, and
technology. To avoid introducing vulnerability into one’s
life, one should always live within one’s present means –
not expectations of future income – and leave oneself with a margin
of time and flexibility for the achievement of any goal, financial or
not. Productivity, efficiency, and skill are all welcome assets, if
they are used to prevent, rather than invite, stress, anxiety, and
physical discomfort.
Learning absolutely
anything of interest and value is desirable, as long as the cost in
time and money – including the opportunity cost – is known and
can be absorbed using present resources. This principle applies to
any kind of formal schooling – or to the purchase of cars, major
articles of furniture, and electronic equipment. If you enjoy it, can
afford it out of pocket, and can think of no better way to use your
time and money – then by all means pursue it with a clear
conscience. If you cannot afford it, or you need the money for
something more important, then wait until you have the means, and
find other ways to use and enjoy your time in the interim. With the
Internet, it is possible to learn many skills and concepts at no
monetary cost at all. It is also possible to pursue relatively
low-cost professional designation programs in fields where sitting in
a classroom is not a requirement for entry.
Remember that
success is attained through many iterations of a variety of
endeavors. Try to make each iteration as inexpensive as possible in
terms of time and money. Except in times of acute crisis where there
are no other options, avoid all forms of debt – with the possible
exception of a mortgage, since it is preferable to the alternative of
renting and giving all of the rent away to another party. Do
not put all of your time and energy into a single field, a single
path, a single expectation. You are a multifaceted human being, and
your job in life is to develop a functional approach to the totality
of existence – not just one sub-specialty therein. Remember, above
all, never to lose your individuality, favored way of living, and
constructive relationships with others in the pursuit of any
educational or career path. You should be the master of your work and
learning – not the other way around.
G. Stolyarov II is
an actuary, science-fiction novelist, independent philosophical
essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter
Stage Right, Le
Quebecois Libre, Rebirth
of Reason, and the Ludwig
von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The
Liberal Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of The
Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles
of reason, rights, and progress. Mr. Stolyarov also publishes
his articles on the Yahoo!
Contributor Network to assist the spread of rational ideas.
He holds the highest Clout Level (10) possible on the Yahoo!
Contributor Network and is one of its Page View Millionaires, with
over 2 million views. Mr. Stolyarov regularly produces YouTube
Videos discussing life extension, libertarianism, and related
subjects.
Mr. Stolyarov holds
the professional insurance designations of Chartered Property
Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Reinsurance (ARe),
Associate in Regulation and Compliance (ARC), Associate in Personal
Insurance (API), Associate in Insurance Services (AIS), Accredited
Insurance Examiner (AIE), and Associate in Insurance Accounting and
Finance (AIAF).
