STOP OVEREDUCATING YOURSELF AND JUST DO THE THING

Photo by Takahiro Taguchi

We are most certainly living in the times of education. Information is everywhere and

there is so much to learn, try, see, explore. But what if we have fallen victims of information pollution? What if there is actually nothing so super-important to learn more than what we already carry within? Let's explore this further.

I am a type of person who dives into every single interest with the same passion and

curiosity. There are always several books I am reading at the same time, several projects I am working on aside, and a massive list of things I would love to dive into, but just don't have time. And while this mass of things keeps growing, the things that I am actually on are in pretty much the same amount, because that's the maximum I can process.

So there is this philosophical theses of mine: stars and other space bodies are soooo far away from me, that it's impossible the answers are over there, when I constantly feel very strong presence of answers all around. This huge distance in the design of the Universe and strong feeling of all-present source of answers all around just suggests that you don't actually have to go that far. It's there to think about it, but you're not meant to go that far in order to understand. Now, this random theses applied to all these information around us, courses and books would be translated to something like this: I can't even calculate how many life times I would need to collect all the knowledge - for me, this just suggests that this is not the way to get these answers either, because it's impossible!

“Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.“ Sun Tzu

But really, we have so many examples of people who stopped reading books, went to live in nature, stopped talking unless necessary, and gained such a wisdom that can't even be found in books! It means that this feeling I have regarding the all-present-answers everywhere might be right, in which case I definitely need to change to way in which I am getting all my knowledge. No more piles of unfinished books, no more on-going online courses, no more degrees to be gained. There is something else that should be performed. Now the question is – what is it?

The answer is pretty simple – just do the stuff! Do it without knowing it completely!

Try, make mistake, try again, make more mistakes. This is how things are actually being learned. Experience is the source of knowledge.

“To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.“ James Joyce

In UX design, we often use the term - ‘first trial learning’. And this is the indicator of a

good UX design. If a User is able to perform a first-trial-learning on a product they

face for the first time, so that the next time they can perform exactly the same steps

without confusion, designer has done their job like a boss. And that's because

we know that Users learn through a try! And still we treat ourselves as an AI that

needs to be fed by enough information in order to start functioning properly. That's

not the case.

So, learn from books and courses for your own pleasure, but challenge yourself

through practice – on and on and on.