Filtering by Category: Life Reflections

The Smallest First Step

August 31, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

“Each step you take reveals a new horizon”

— Dan Poynter

One day while on a recent trip to Poland we drove to Ojców National Park to spend a day exploring the valley of the river Prądnik, the Renaissance castle at Pieskowa Skała, and the natural limestone wonders that include cliffs, ravines, caves, and columns such as the solitary Bludgeon of Hercules.

My wife and I thought we knew what awaited us - we've visited the park 5 years ago. Instead, an unexpected discovery left us torn and longing.

The place was an old homestead that contains a historic grain mill and a sawmill. My wife, son, and I took the tour, learned the history, and witnessed both mills operate using the power of the small river that runs through the property. But while we enjoyed the history lesson and watched the big wheels and pulleys mill grain and slice wood with awe we fell in love with the grass meadow on the other side of the river, the simple wooden house the current owners live in, the surrounding white limestone cliffs and green trees, and the tiniest of bakeries you will ever see.

The hut must have been 15 feet long and 8 feet across. Behind the counter, a young woman rolling dough only temporarily stopping to pull freshly made sugar cookies out of the oven standing to her side. Behind her, not a traditional but cliff wall - the back somehow removed exposing the natural limestone intermixed with green vegetation. Round, freshly-made cheesecake on the counter. Bottles of mint-infused homemade lemonade in the background. A hot mid-August afternoon. Its air filled with the scents of nature, melted sugar, and vanilla. And the quiet everywhere...

Kasia (my wife) loves baking. She could bake bread, cakes, and cookies. We could even set up a little office so she could use to do psychotherapy if she chose to continue seeing clients. Adam (my son) loves cookies and we've been playing soccer almost every day since he got his first cleats. We could do that in the meadow and take cookie and lemonade breaks whenever we wanted to. I love writing and the outdoors. Maybe I'd pick a different spot to write in each day. I could just breathe in the air and drift away.

After Adam samples 5 or 6 cookies we decide it's time to get a bag to go. We order a piece of cheesecake to split but after one bite my wife pulls the plate closer to herself and advises me to get a slice of my own. The lemonade could be colder but we don't care to mind.

Surrounded by this beauty and peace Kasia tells me this is the place of her dreams. I'm thinking the same exact thing at the same exact moment but don't say it. I can't. It seems so unreachable. So abstract. Mission impossible.

I think about that homestead, the river, the meadow, and the bakery repeatedly. My mind will not let go. The weird thing is we have not dreamt up or dreamed about a place like this before. It appeared suddenly and took a hold of us. What does one do when this happens to him or her? Do I just chalk it up as a naive delusion? Or, do I grab a hold of it and don't let go and don't let up until I reach it?

It scares me. A journey such as this calls for full commitment. It's arduous and uncertain. But the goal is always worth it because the destination is one's destiny. The lizard brain won't let me leave the safety of my current cave. I must act in spite of it.

Every journey begins with the first step. It needs not to be a huge leap. The smallest step in the right direction gets you closer. Just find the direction and go. You can draw the full map later. It'll be easier once you step onto the path and start making it familiar.

But what is the smallest step one can take?

Beginnings offer the most options because we know little at this stage. For our journey, I need to sit down and talk with Kasia about the smallest first step we can take. We could create a list of maybe 5 to 10 easy things we can do to begin pursuing our dream. Then, we can make the first small step by choosing one of them. And then another.

If your journey involves others you need to include them right at the start. But no matter what your journey is the first step will involve learning. Ask: What do I need to learn? Where or who can I learn about this from? How did someone else do something similar?

Find a few answers and begin your education. Keep it simple. It's the enormity of the endeavor that often overwhelms the mind and overpowers the will. Our brains resist action to protect us and as we retreat to our caves our dreams go unfulfilled.

This is why many say: If I could then I would... They look at the end result and figure they have no time or resources to get there.

They are right. They have no time or resources to do it all at once. Few do. But what they often miss is that they can take a small step forward - start exploring and experimenting - get one percent of one percent closer to their result. And yes, they'll still have 99.9999 percent of the journey still ahead of them but they did what most never do - they overcame inertia and gained motion and you know what Ike said back in 1686... Even the smallest step requires some small force.

Just remember to go forward.

The process of learning is a journey in itself. Everyone knows how to learn. To an extent... This means everyone can get better at learning.

I lay out the journey to becoming a faster and more effective learner in a series of small steps in my new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier.

I recently received a couple of text messages from students reading Crush School in a classroom somewhere in Oklahoma:

Neither student replied. I think they were curious if the number I gave in the book was indeed legit :). I am happy they like my writing though.

The book is now on sale for $19.95 (33% OFF) until Monday, September 3rd. You can grab it here. It goes back to its regular price of $29.95 in 3 days.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

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Hi! I'm Oskar. I teach, write, and speak to make learning better.

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids

To Focus on What Truly Matters You Must Fight Predators and Choose the Right Opportunities

July 10, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

The modern Homo Sapiens is in the fight of his life. The never-ending struggle occurs in his brain. As the modern brain battles the ancient part of it, the struggle manifests itself as a series of contradictory behaviors. On one hand, the Sapiens has the ability to learn an indefinable amount of information. On the other, he's often too distracted to learn much of anything.

Evolution has both allowed him and robbed him of the ability to carefully process information - to rethink, to reflect, and to reapply. As a result of this paradox, he often skims the learning surface. While the cerebrum (modern "rational" brain) has skyrocketed his potential, his progress is hindered by the amygdala (ancient "emotional" brain). His knowledge stalls. He's mired in mediocrity. No longer in tangible danger, he's escaping the conditioned anxieties. The distractions today's world affords him make it easy. And they are everywhere.

Why do so many people become part-time zombies, the classroom students and the everywhere adults, who upon leaving their dull desks and constraining cubicles glue their eyes to screens and allow their minds to be trapped in virtual, dopamine-inducing worlds that serve as fire escapes from the boring, painful, and otherwise unpleasant daily reality but keep them stuck in it long term?

The ancient brain has evolved to respond to two things: threats and rewards. The mere perception of a threat releases cortisol and adrenaline and we freeze, fight, or flight. When the brain detects reward possibilities or we're rewarded, it produces dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. This motivates us to keep doing what we're doing because we want to keep feeling the good feeling.

Back in the day, the rewards were food and the opportunity to procreate. The threats were the predators that tried to eat us and the natural we tried to hide from.

Enter the modern times - the technology and the entertainment. Our ancient brain responds to them as opportunities and they often are but the rewards they offer can be tricky.

While technology is cool, the entertainment industry is insidious, and our awareness rare. Fires are few and far in-between and most other prehistoric dangers the Sapiens faced have long been extinguished. Yet our split attention remains and make no mistake, the industry knows it and fights for it. And we succumb by continually allowing ourselves to be convinced we must keep running away.

The insidious, profit-mongering, and brilliant marketing campaigns and products of television producers, social media providers, app and game developers, and others work to keep us convinced they offer something much better than life itself. Consequently, we often let time pass unforgivably "taking the load off" from our busy work or school lives instead of spending it doing more meaningful things that improve our lives. Mediocrity perpetuated with the belief "this is all life is supposed to be."

And this is how the industry players want us. They want us coming back to them. The more automatic our behaviors the better, because if they lose our attention they lose. They can't profit.

While many online activities are worthwhile, we rarely think about how much time we spend participating in things that keep us stuck in the status quo we might otherwise work on changing. While there's nothing wrong with taking a mental break, as we should do things that relax our minds, we are being conditioned to identify work as the necessary evil to grind through from 9-5, so that we can have fun as a reward afterward.

We become dabblers. We just dabble in things. We're too distracted to commit. The predators changed and so did the opportunities but they're ever-present. They keep our minds occupied. If we don't pay attention we end up doing a lot of things that entertain us in the moment but add little lasting value to our lives.

We can spend our lives sitting on a couch looking at a screen doing little more than nothing or we can spend that time interacting with the world we live in, learning about it and ourselves, and filling our lives with meaning. The only way to flip that switch is by becoming aware and taking action.

Our kids are the most vulnerable ones. But zero tolerance electronics policies are not the way because the brain wants what it cannot have even more. The forbidden fruit tastes sweeter.

So we don't take away but educate. We lead by example. We show our kids that there's a better way. We limit our use and their use of the devices and actively participate in their lives. We do stuff with them because we love them. Then, we cross our fingers and hope they see the way for themselves.

On the places they'll go.

I think they will. I believe they can.

You have the power to change lives. Use if often so they can change the world.

Oskar

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, deep work, productivity

Producing Cogs When We Need Engines: A 3 Act Education Tragedy

May 18, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

Education Tragedy: Producing Cogs When We Need Engines

4-year-old Adam: "Do you know what a tick is?"

Mom/Dad (pretending not to know): "No. What is it?"

Adam: "A tick is a bird that can suck your butt!"

Dad: "I don't think that's quite right honey."

Adam: "But Ezra (another 4-year-old) said so!"

Mom: "Ezra isn't always right honey."

Dad: "A tick is a BUG that can suck your BLOOD."

[ACT I] From Creativity to Conditioning

I suppose Adam and Ezra weren't wrong about the butt part because I think a tick might actually end up sucking butt blood.

But it turns out dad (me) was wrong too. When geeking out online I discovered ticks are ARACHNIDS, 8-legged INSECTS not BUGS, which have wings.

Anyway, while ticks are Lyme disease-carrying gross looking parasites, what's important and even more impressive is two 4-year-olds showing interest and talking about ticks. Not that 4-year-olds don't talk about unexpected topics, they most definitely do. I just think it's pretty freaking cool that they are so curious and in their inquisitive nature come up with crazy creative definitions for things they are learning about and answers to problems they are working on solving.

And there becomes apparent the tragedy of today's schooling. In today's classrooms, many creative answers and solutions are nonexistent. Middle school and most definitely high school is no place for butt sucking tick birds. Such answers are no longer cute. They are ridiculed by the jury of peers and deemed ridiculous by judge teachers.

And so, most students stay safe. They do not venture guesses to questions in class for fear of being wrong. They don't take risks. Rather, they wait for someone else, most often the teacher, to give them the right answer.

And can you blame them?

All the tests they take comprise of only one right answer questions. Schools give grades based on these tests. Students use grades and classroom behaviors to sort the super nerds from the nerds from the average Joes from the not so smarts from the dumber-than-dirts. End result? Students are conditioned to get it right the first time or to stay invisible.

And that's just Act I of the play called school.

[Act II] Compliance and Efficiency: What Being a "Good" Student Means

Act II is a tragedy of incongruence between what and how schools of today teach and what is required to be successful now and in the future.

Just consider what it means to be a good student in a typical American high school.

The best students seem to be the ones who efficiently cram a lot of useless facts (and by useless I mean facts that aren't applied in real time), answer multiple choice questions about these facts effectively enough to receive good grades, and undoubtedly forget most of those facts and the details associated with them shortly after the "successful" assessment.

The best students then are ones who learn to play the get the best grades so I can get into a good college game well. This is unfortunate because true learning, learning that sticks and can be applied in multiple ways in future situations, does not happen.

And thus the Act II tragedy unfolds when such a student is asked to think creatively or innovate on his own. He is often incapable of original thought being programmed to perceive, think, and act with the mindless rigidity necessary for success in the too-slow-evolving rigid system that is today's formal education.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but all one needs to do to prove the above rule is to take a look at the legions of 9-to-5ers continuing to perform work they feel blah about in places they grew tired of long ago and with people they dislike or downright despise.

Like a caged animal, trapped.

[Act III] The American Dream Myth

A mortgage, 2 car payments, and bills to pay. This is what we call success. The American Dream. The Declaration of Independence guides us toward this dependence.

The American Dream is a myth that has lived in the minds of millions of Americans for generations. It is a well told and sold tale most of us buy into because we are repeatedly taught that if we suck it up and work hard we are in the right place to achieve it. But upon careful examination, we see just how rigid and constraining this belief is.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? As happiness is predefined for us as the American Dream it equates to being content with becoming a necessary and obedient cog that meshes with other such cogs to help the machine run smoothly.

Not convinced? Take work.

Exchange time for money. Use this money to buy a car. Exchange more time for more money. Buy a house. Exchange even more time for more money. Buy a boat, vacations, golf clubs, season tickets, college education, and other things we think we need.

The more time we trade for money, the more material goods and various services we can acquire, the stronger the economy, the engine that grows and consumes ever more fuel. Our formally educated, conditioned, and compliant sweat is the fuel. But someone else is driving. Never us. And, most of the time we don't even realize it.

We have grown accustomed to the accumulation of things and experiences. There's nothing wrong with that until the very purpose of work is to achieve the means to periodically escape the world of work, because it has little or no meaning, to this self-created world of accumulated things, which provides temporary relief but leaves us unfulfilled just the same.

Of course, there are always cogs that don't fit and don't want to fit. They project a different vision of how things could be; how they could be. They do things differently. They do things society has a hard time accepting. Looking for meaning they fail a lot.

We ridicule and call them weirdos at first. This is because they reject the society's myths. They don't buy into them. They keep failing. We keep laughing. But after they fail enough times they find their voice and place. Soon, we call them artists, innovators, and trendsetters. They become the engines of progress and they drive. In the meantime, we consume what they produce and stay the necessary unfulfilled cogs turning only to keep the status quo machine going.

Writing a New Play: How Do We Build More Engines?

Fact: We evolved to be keenly aware of our environment and highly creative in its utilization.

Fiction: We evolved to create societies that function based on shared values, beliefs, opinions, and ways of doing things.

Irony: As we abandoned the environment and way of life we are best equipped for by evolution for a chance to form societies we adopted shared myths (values, beliefs, opinions etc.) of how things are supposed to be, the blind following of which led to the destruction of most individualism and creativity.

Now, we find ourselves in a constant tug of war between what our instincts drive us to do (experimentation, creativity, individuality etc.) and what our society accepts (duty, sensibility, norm compliance etc.).

From the moment evolution gifted us with the consciousness that separates us from all other animals, our species has had limitless potential to invent and create. This special ability is exhibited by every child not spoiled by the rules, laws, and norms that define precisely what's allowed, what's unacceptable, and what's down right wrong.

From their inception schools have been factories designed to churn out new, rule following, product producing, and service providing members of the communities they serve and societies they're part of. Efficiency has always been the main focus. Saving time and money, predictability, and buy in. The smooth system operation requires indoctrination.

It's never perfect. Sometimes we complain. But it works.

It works because it conditions. Children learn to adopt certain unnatural from evolutionary perspective behaviors. They are standardized to fit the mold of a model citizen. They are taught how to "grow out" of unreasonable and unrealistic dreams. The machine has worked so well that many parents tell the same myths to their kids at dinner having been molded by the educational machine into a perfectly fitting cog of the corporate one.

But here's the thing. I don't know any 4-year-olds who dream about paying a mortgage. I don't know any 10-year-olds obsessed with buying a house either. This is how I know the American Dream is a myth acquired in our adulthood.

I have nothing against owning a house, 2 cars, and a goldfish. Those things are cool and taking care of Nemo makes some people happy. I simply disagree with calling it all the American Dream because every kid growing up has dreams and she should be allowed to keep and pursue them with all her might and help she deserves. Instead, we often discourage, devalue, or discount her imagination's creations and teach that a good paying job is life's ultimate purpose.

Imagine a 4-year-old obsessed with becoming an NBA star. But maybe he grows up to be an unathletic five foot eight. The society and its rules teach him to be sensible and responsible so he abandons the dream entirely and settles for being a lawyer. The problem with that approach is that he will most likely find little meaning in this risk mitigating choice of a profession. But let's be real here: he will probably hate it.

Why wasn’t this kid taught to use his imagination and look for ways to adopt this dream to his limitations and realities? Is it entirely out of the sphere of possibility that he could find a way to pursue something closely related he would be equally as happy doing for the rest of his life and feel fulfilled doing?

Maybe he could start a podcast interviewing basketball players or a website with unique content related to the NBA and NBA fandom. Those are just two ideas, but I bet with time and help and encouragement he could come up with a hundred.

But no. It's way more sensible to go to law school or pursue a STEM career. Nothing wrong with that, I just wish that more schools started equipping kids with skills to pursue their first passions, more teachers started empowering kids to take risks and fail and try again, and more parents started encouraging kids to escape the social pressures and influences and just go for it.

As things are now, we teach and condition kids to constantly second guess their choices. We only live once but life is not a one and done affair. Not even close! We can always start anew. Always. This is what we need to teach our kids.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

I hope this article inspires you to take s few small actions to help change the social and educational status quo for your students, your kids. A small disturbance is often all it takes to start an avalanche of progress.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, entrepreneurship, success skills, skills for the future, skills