My position on studying

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A mini-essay on studying that I didn’t want rotting in my journal.

So I think for a while I’ve rejected ideas about school and how to view it. I’ve seen the way people think about school as either something they enjoy doing or something they ‘have to do’ as really depressing for the latter option.

I’ve always had a priority for intrinsic motivation or ‘1st cause motivation.’ These are things you do simply because you like doing them. The way activities beget themselves is good, not morally or anything but the more you do it, the more you enjoy it. That’s how I see video games and working out. I don’t really think about ‘Oh I’m resting a good amount’ or ‘I’m hitting peak performance in this workout,’ I just do it and enjoy it.

This semester in college I took the only economics course I need to take for my degree, econ 1000. This course was mostly a rehash of concepts my high school economics class covered, but went into more detail on some things. This course reinvigorated my perceptions on extrinsic or ‘2nd cause’ motivation. ‘You want x thing, do y for me,’ is the way it works. Jobs for example are majority 2nd cause motivators, you go to work so you can make money to do other things.

For as far back as I can remember I’ve been trying to do things off 1st cause motivation alone. In college I’ve hit a wall so many times I’ve started imprint myself on it’s face. Repeatedly the work required by my courses has exceeded my 1st cause motivation. No matter how hard I try to care, I cannot for the life of me care about studying the little individual things that are required by an engineering bachelors program.

I recently have had a minor breakthrough in this wall. ‘Not everything you do is going to be fun.’ Obvious, to most people probably, but to me it’s important. All my life I’ve had the belief that you should be intrinsically motivated to do as many things as you can. For the first time in my life it feels like I can stop trying to care, stop trying to make it fun, stop trying to make it apart of who I am just to do the task.

The energy I’ve had to spend to do the most menial tasks has been ridiculous and now it feels like I can stop pretending. I no longer have to make myself enjoy the stuff I don’t enjoy. I’m freer now than I was 30 minutes ago before I wrote this because I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not.

I don’t care about school, not really. I care about learning, that’s who I am, but I am not a studier. That’s okay though, I don’t have to craft myself into ‘someone who enjoys studying,’ I can just do it and be as bad as I need to be in order to get it done. An anchor has lifted from my chest and I feel relieved.

I got into my engineering program because of two reasons. One, my partner was going to break up with me if I didn’t do it. Two, I want to learn engineering. I don’t care about getting a job with my degree, I don’t care about making a lot of money. I just wanted to learn firsthand what the skills were in order to do engineering so I can design, build, & test things. If you were me, you would assume that would be intrinsic motivation to study, but you would be wrong.

Studying and coursework are not the same thing as what I want to do. I don’t want to complete tasks given by professors, I want to have knowledge and skill and be able to work with my hands as well as my mind. That is not the same as studying. However, I do have to study in order to have the knowledge and skill I desire. To me, studying is a means to an end, not the end itself. Even though I enjoy it sometimes, I will find ways to bypass it if I can. That means to me, I must study as it’s the only option, and I don’t have to force myself to enjoy it. I just have to study as long as it means I can pursue the knowledge and skills I desire. That in a way, is comforting.

In summary, I only need to study as much as I am required. Studying is a choice I make because it is a grueling process but worth the fruits it bears. I don’t have to like it, I just have to stick with it enough to get what I need out of it. Studying is the time and effort that it costs in order to purchase new skills from the universe. It is a price I will haggle with when possible, but it is almost always a price I’m willing to pay even if I’d rather it not be paid at all.