Strong urge to drop out but I think I'd regret it

Hmm, hi there !

Well, recently, school and studies have been digusting me.


There are many many things I feel like I can't endure anymore. The pressure from my parents and my main teacher (I passed all my exams and tests this semester, my grade point average is at 3,4/4, but they insist that it's not enough and want me to take more AP classes).

I hate the ambient comformism there. People (teachers and students) will tell you what to think, what to say, what to do, what to like, and students who show the slighest sign of difference are rejected, excluded, called names, humiliated. God I hate this.
Moreover, the teachers seem not to care about our mental heatlh, adding more and more hours to our timetables (which is supposed to be forbidden...), giving us an *** load of homework each week, and expecting us to complete all the schoolwork at a high level. The headmaster wants our school to become more competitive, which is why we are all expected to be brillant. Like if we were some kind of robots or indsutrial products to be sold.

I've been working really hard, so hard that it's difficult for me to find time for my hobbies, and my friends/boyfriend. Plus, I have a part time job, which takes away even more of my free time. So if they keep subjecting me to more and more extra classes... I don't know what I will become lol


It makes me want to completely give up. Not only school, but also work, and social life, family and friends. I just want to shut myself in my room for the rest of my life. That would be relieving.

But I think I would regret it, I've been getting really good grades until now, and I worked my *** off to get there. Same for my current job, I spent a lot of time in training to get it. I just think it would be disrespectful to myself to give in and mess up years and years of hard work, just because of a few people.

I don't know how to handle this...

Hey Kibou, I'm sorry, I wrote a reply to this yesterday... but I'm a new member and it looks like the post got lost. I'll rewrite it tomorrow, but for now I can just say that I've heard you and I understand. It's okay.

Well, I think your feelings of disgust are appropriate concerning what school is.
School exists for the purposes of leveling people into a conformity appropriate for social stability. It's just propaganda for the 'spirit of the age' - the kind of propaganda where the answers aren't even wrong because the question sets the stage wrong. So, even most who recognize the answer is wrong won't recognize that they can't escape the question. And that's fine, I guess, it's something anyways.

But for people who are on the 'fringe,' the people who won't conform so easily, the school grinds on them all the more. Either the fringe person is conformed by the grinding or the fringe person is broken. And when I mean broken, I mean a deep loss of psychological/spiritual integrity. Grinding requires quite a lot of pressure.

Yes, the system (though there are some teachers who do care, I've found them very rare) cannot care about your mental health or your essential being. Yes, they'd prefer you to be a robot - robot's are better for the economy. You've done well to observe this, it means you aren't blind - a great advantage in this world. What you describe has been seen and described for centuries because it is what is.

Robots exist to service the human in any way the human desires. But we aren't actually robots, so I've preferred the word 'hominid' myself. The question arises; if we are the hominids then who or what is the human? That's something worth pondering.
Yes, it'd be relieving, but what about it would make it relieving?

Yet, you can't simply be shut away. Your relief would become a cage because you wouldn't be living your life. You can't deny your own life and get away with it, not without breaking. Ultimately, shutting yourself away is also a way to destroy everything outside.

Let me tell you, being broken can't be the option you pick. You've got to find a way to survive in a single piece. Nechayev was broken, both me and the Nechayev I name myself after. If you want to buck the system, if you want to rebel against it, if you want to seek justice against it, it'll only come down on you harder and harder - if you take that to it's end, the only thing left of you will be the will for universal vengeance and total annihilation of everything. You can't do that because you'd build your own hell on earth that way. Because, let me tell you, the grinding doesn't end with school.

Remember, that grinding can produce a polished gem.

Yes, you might regret it. Part of what is pressuring you is other's regret, but you aren't them. A good degree is a useful tool, and those AP classes are useful tools for getting that good degree. Do you need that tool? I don't know. A lot of people trade their youths for tools they don't need. Others fail to obtain the tools they need. It isn't wrong of them to try to set you up with useful tools.

It'd be strange if you did know how to handle it. I don't really know either. Let me tell you though, you've got to become truly human. It's the same end for everyone. Figure out your end and your path is set. You'll have nothing else to do but that path. Having only that path will give you the relief you desire.

You have your life and you should live it. In school they always told me that it was prep for 'real life,' but life is always real. When you have your path, you'll be free to live your life - a very worthwhile life.
----------------------

Practically, what you should do now is be honest with your parents. Talk with them and talk with them maturely. Let them know what's up with you. Let them know what you think. Let them know what you feel. And then you should go with what they say until you are out of their house - which is why it's important to be mature and honest in talking with them.

You'll be okay.

Thanks a lot for your reply... ! Having an external point of view is always helpful to make me think in a clearer way and find solutions

Just wondering, why do you think it's an advantage ?

Is this like high school or college?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibou Hmm, hi there ! Well, recently, school and studies have been digusting me. There are many many things I feel like I can't endure anymore. The pressure from my parents and my main teacher (I passed all my exams and tests this semester, my grade point average is at 3,4/4, but they insist that it's not enough and want me to take more AP classes). I hate the ambient comformism there. People (teachers and students) will tell you what to think, what to say, what to do, what to like, and students who show the slighest sign of difference are rejected, excluded, called names, humiliated. God I hate this. Moreover, the teachers seem not to care about our mental heatlh, adding more and more hours to our timetables (which is supposed to be forbidden...), giving us an *** load of homework each week, and expecting us to complete all the schoolwork at a high level. The headmaster wants our school to become more competitive, which is why we are all expected to be brillant. Like if we were some kind of robots or indsutrial products to be sold. I've been working really hard, so hard that it's difficult for me to find time for my hobbies, and my friends/boyfriend. Plus, I have a part time job, which takes away even more of my free time. So if they keep subjecting me to more and more extra classes... I don't know what I will become lol It makes me want to completely give up. Not only school, but also work, and social life, family and friends. I just want to shut myself in my room for the rest of my life. That would be relieving. But I think I would regret it, I've been getting really good grades until now, and I worked my *** off to get there. Same for my current job, I spent a lot of time in training to get it. I just think it would be disrespectful to myself to give in and mess up years and years of hard work, just because of a few people. I don't know how to handle this...

It is high school

If you think life is hard now with school, then just wait until you drop out. You'll have way less money than people with an education, you'll have a lack of job opportunities, and you'll get stuck working a dead end job like a cashier for the rest of your life, everyday just wishing that you can be the doctor, lawyer, artist, designer, or whatever you wanted to be for the rest of your life. Don't give up just because times are stressful. The stress you're feeling now will pay off in the future.

It is an advantage, because you are better able to see through the world - through to your end.

When I was in highschool, I used to read a certain book every day - the whole book. I've found nothing more beautiful in the world, though even now I cannot say I understand it. You have to become old to understand it, but only the young may find hope in it. You've just got to hold it in your heart and accept it, read it again to refresh your heart's memory of it, and just hold onto it.

I will give you some excerpts;

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king’s successor do
than what has already been done?
I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
The wise have eyes in their heads,
while the fool walks in the darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.

Then I said to myself,

“The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?”
I said to myself,
“This too is meaningless.”
For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!"

"I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.
And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun.

And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.
Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind."

-------------------------------------------

"Whoever loves money never has enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
This too is meaningless.

As goods increase,
so do those who consume them.
And what benefit are they to the owners
except to feast their eyes on them?

The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
whether they eat little or much,
but as for the rich, their abundance
permits them no sleep.

I have seen a grievous evil under the sun:

wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners,
or wealth lost through some misfortune,
so that when they have children
there is nothing left for them to inherit.
Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb,
and as everyone comes, so they depart.
They take nothing from their toil
that they can carry in their hands.

This too is a grievous evil:

As everyone comes, so they depart,
and what do they gain,
since they toil for the wind?
All their days they eat in darkness,
with great frustration, affliction and anger."

--------------------------

"A good name is better than fine perfume,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.
Frustration is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person
than to listen to the song of fools.
Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,
so is the laughter of fools.
This too is meaningless.

Extortion turns a wise person into a fool,
and a bribe corrupts the heart.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning,
and patience is better than pride.
Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.

Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing
and benefits those who see the sun.
Wisdom is a shelter
as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
Wisdom preserves those who have it."

-----------------------------------------

"This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even their name is forgotten.
Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun."

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your spouse, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.

------------------------------------------

Light is sweet,
and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
However many years anyone may live,
let them enjoy them all.
But let them remember the days of darkness,
for there will be many.
Everything to come is meaningless.

You who are young, be happy while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you into judgment.
So then, banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body,
for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibou It is high school

I urge you not to drop out of high school. My daughter ran away last year when she was 18 and a senior and got involved in drugs and alcohol. In the US we have the GED and she stopped going to school regularly and thought she would just do that. Thank god she hit bottom soon enough where she was able to catch up on all her work, and they let her graduate in December because she said she would have regretted it and probably not gone back to get the GED if she had dropped out. I know its hard but its just something you have to try and suffer through and even if you barely make it, just push through. I donot know what France is like but I imagine things are similar?

I wouldn't drop out of high school, I'm not sure what its like in France, but here most high school drop outs don't have jobs. Some do get there GED. Is there a GED program of some sort in France? Here in the USA if your a certain age, you may possibly have to get parental signature or other requirements, you can take a series of subject tests, get a certain score, you have your GED. With that being said though the GED is said to be equivalent to the high school diploma but it is looked down upon by many people and of course employers. I hope you really figure out what you want to do and it doesn't cause you too much duress. Good luck!

Omg you live in France? You're gonna drop out of high school in a country where you get a free university education? Do you realize that people in the states and Canada would KILL for that opportunity!?

Kibou,

Since you are a high school student in France, you have a couple of options to help you finish your education:

• study abroad for one semester in another country and do a homestay
• finish your high school diploma through an online education company as we call it "home school."

Also, I highly recommend you search tutor websites. I used to tutor students here in the U.S. to help them structure their study time with their extracurricular activities, and help them create a daily schedule for themselves to follow that their parents could post on their kitchen refrigerator so that the student felt he/she had the support of their family.

Finish high school. You are in a great country. After that, you can get a job. Or, you can go to art school or be an entrepreneur or go to college. The world is yours to take, but first, you need to find a way to help yourself manage the courseload and the mental stress of studies and exams and a social life as a high school student.