The Day I Realized School Was a Program…
When I think back to high school, the biggest lesson I learned didn’t come from a textbook.
It was this: school isn’t really about teaching you how to live… it’s about training you to fit.
We memorized dates, wars, kings, queens, and maps. We could label rivers we’d never seen and recite things written by people long gone. But no one taught us how to understand grief. Or boundaries. Or what to do when life knocks the wind out of you. Or how to pay a bill, set boundaries, mend a broken heart, or choose yourself without guilt.
I remember thinking, “Who wrote all this stuff? And why is this what matters?”
We were never taught how to recognize manipulation, how to trust our instincts, how to say no without feeling selfish, or how to rebuild ourselves when life collapses.
We learned to sit still, obey the bell, raise our hand, and fit the system. But the real lessons? Those came later, through mistakes, heartbreaks, wild decisions, long roads, and those moments when you’re standing alone, wondering, “What now?”
So maybe that was the real lesson after all:
School taught me how to pass tests.
Life taught me how to survive.
And honestly? I’m still learning.
Mae 🧡
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