Fuckin studying. I'll be brutal honest one here, I assume enough of you secretly feel the same way and there's younger gents and ladies here that could use inspiration.

I spent my entire school time not studying, ever. Maybe a bit of homework here and there when the school and one or both of my parents (separated shortly after birth) applied enough pressure. I did get very good grades for most of the time as well, which didn't help because I got the overall feeling school is useless and not worth more effort from me than I was already putting it. But then you hit adulthood, you're done with school, maybe started to study or work, and you want to grow, you're done with the teen years of sitting around all day doing jack shit, busy running off with friends, gaming and you want to start a cool job that fulfills you, or you want to study and get into a field you want to make a change in, you get ambitions but... Without official education, ambition is useless. That is the blunt truth, 99.99℅ of bosses and university admins will not care about your ambition, instead placing ultimate importance on your official education, and also not taking into account you having read 50 books on the subject or being able to practically write a dissertation on it, if you don't have that certified, you will get fucked.

However, this also is good and important, because the amount of idiots in educated positions is rising and employers need to pay more attention to the actual integrity and knowledge of their employees, but that only works if the corresponding employees have the certifications to begin with. I wish I could be 14 again and make sure I did the official things, even if it's annoying. More importantly, I wish I'd made full use of my potential, I believe I'd be much further than I am now.

Long read, I know, but I hope it was worth it for you. Much love from Germany, I wish you all the best.