> I grew up in an environment where I was made to feel that if I got a single B+ on a report card nothing good would happen in my life because no colleges would

> I grew up in an environment where I was made to feel that if I got a single B+ on a report card nothing good would happen in my life because no colleges would accept me and then I would never get a FAANG job and I would die alone. Internalizing that logic helped me work hard but I also think it made me neurotic and fearful in ways that took a long time to undo. What I believe now is that if you’re creative and willing to work hard there’s a lot of different paths to success. I wish I knew this at the end of mandatory education. It's pretty clear there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't operate well under traditional education and career paths. For us, it's just a slow, often painful exercise in realising following rules laid out by some institution just doesn't work for us - and most critically: that that is OK! that it doesn't mean you are not capable, or not smart, at most it means you might not be good at jumping through hoops when you have no intrinsic motivation to do so, and at least it shows that education is not designed to work for everyone, it's one size fits all. ... but almost no one tells you this, and so we are destined to waste time and, in some countries huge amounts of money, and psychological pain learning this lesson. The irony is I now work in ed-tech. But I have some solace in knowing the technology I work on is moving traditional education towards a more individualised experience that might work better for someone like me.