And the Nerds Shall Inherit the Super-Cool Helicopter
- Print
- 5/11/2011 |
- 10:00 am
One of the things that I constantly hear from students is that if they are perceived as 'nerds' in middle school or high school, they won't fit in with the so-called 'cool crowd,' and therefore they won't get to do all the fun stuff that the 'cool crowd' gets to do during their teenage years.
There are about a million reasons why that's just not true at all, and pretty much anybody who's ever lived through grades K-12 would tell you so. But that's not even the most important point that I want to make, so we'll just let that argument slide. If you want to believe that you have to dumb down in school in order to do fun things for a couple years with a bunch of temporary friends, fine. Whatever. It's not true, but we'll ignore that silliness for the time being.
Let's focus instead on the point that most young people overlook, which is this: When you do your best in school (and when you teach yourself to be the kind of person who likes to constantly learn new things), you're setting yourself up to do fun, cool things with fun, cool people for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life! That means decades and decades.
Want an example? Earlier this week I came across this story about the team of science nerds who designed a helicopter that is powered completely by human power -- namely, by a competitive cyclist who pedals very, very hard. You can read the story for yourself, and you can even watch an awesome video that talks about the project in detail. But the bottom line is, a team of people got to spend their days coming up with a way to design a helicopter that no one has ever seen before, that may have all kinds of important uses for our military forces fighting overseas, and that, oh-by-the-way, might win them a $250,000 prize.
If you look around, you see this kind of stuff everywhere. Do you like to play video games? Do you like to goof off with your smartphone/iPad/laptop? Who do you think creates those things? The kid who sat in the front of the room and took notes, or the kid who sat in the back of the room and slacked off? And yes, okay, so money isn't everything. But how much money do you think that's worth? I'm willing to bet that the guy who designed Angry Birds is sitting on the balcony of his beach house right now, watching someone wash his Lamborghini. (And it's not a longshot to think that the guy he's paying to wash that Lamborghini was a 'cool kid' slacker in high school.)
Here's my point: school is short, just a few years really, and your adult life is much longer. If you want to spend your days doing amazingly cool things, and in return have a fulfilling life, interesting friends, money in the bank, a nice roof over your head, and the respect of the people around you... then you would be wise to cultivate a love of learning, and to start by doing your best in school. Because you can take it from me, or from anyone else who's ever been through the social zoo that is middle school and high school: the kids who slack off wind up working for the kids who apply themselves. And that is the truth, my friends.
Do you want to design a helicopter... write movies... be the head of marketing for an international clothing designer... represent professional athletes as a top-flight sports agent... own your own PR firm... run a record label... fly fighter jets... build new technologies... save lives by practicing medicine... in short, do you want to ENJOY what you do for the rest of your life, and get paid doing it?
There's a path that will take you there. It starts with first-period tomorrow morning.
