When I was young, it wasn’t clear to me why I should learn and get good grades. I got them, but their purpose was unclear.
I think I was a good student, at times much better than the average, but, as you can expect, there was still some room left to get even better.
When I was very young, I had lots of time. There was little to no guidance on what I should do with that time.
Sure, I read a lot, but I also watched TV and played games on the computer.
About playing games outside, when I was very young, I used to do this a lot, but as I grew, I put much less emphasis on sports and outdoor activities.
When I discovered Orthodoxy, sometime in 1997, I did have a purpose – become better, improve my learning, study well, be a performer.
All-in-all, I think I would have done a better job in school had I knew I am aiming for a certain purpose.
On another hand, when reading certain articles, you can’t but wonder – other than getting good grades in school, becoming a top performer, having a successful career based on that, is there something more to life?
Does it matter even more to be a good person?
See this quote, in which it says that intelligence might be less important than kindness. It might even be the best thing in life:
“[…] ceea ce contează în viață nu-i niciodată inteligența, ci bunătatea […]. E lucrul cel mai bun pe care îl poate avea cineva în viață.” (Mircea Cărtărescu)
I don’t think that if you read books and study well, and have a high-performance job you are a bad person. On another hand, just being very intelligent / very knowledgeable might not be enough to be a good person.
