Why I Left School
A couple weeks ago, one of Tucker Max’s dogs jumped up, squatted and pissed all over my puppy’s face who just happened to be stuck in the middle of a large tractor tire in the front yard of a barrio house in Los Angeles. Apparently, this is what my life has become. I’m totally happy with that. When you’re in a surreal space, surreal things will happen – it’s what you get when you take a chance and stop listening to “how things are and should be.”
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.
So you quit school then? You got some courage. But then again, this seemed to be inevitable, right? Been following your blog for a while now, and this seems like it would have happened anyway. Ever read The Education of Henry Adams. I think the writing is a little bit dated for contemporary readers … but he pretty much came to a similar conclusion — just because he had a harvard degree — none of it really mattered because there was no true application to any of the things he learned at Harvard, aside from social stuff … I know, same stuff has been said millions of times, but seen you devour books, thought you might want to check it out. Anyway, keep writing!
meleeandthebee
you should read the Bible. I’d like to know what you think about it.
What one with the ability to travel to surreal spaces would do well to remember is that the more numerous and fixed “how things are and should be” spacers occupy the same living space and always will. Also, since the latter doesn’t have (or use) the resources to truly acknowledge the former, guess where the burden to co-exist rests?
I know it’s not encouraging, but at least it’s unfair.
And you can’t be in school while leading a surreal life? I believe Tucker was educated for ~8 Years and Duke seemed certainly interesting enough.
Maybe my reading comprehension isn’t so good, but I didn’t see where he said school is boring and that’s why he’s leaving.
If that’s the case, Hanno might prefer you go back to school.
I think you have misunderstood the purpose of college, which is to teach students how to think critically.
Even though you clearly have this ability, Ryan, you should get your degree. Although a college education has no real world application, it enables you to have more opportunities than those that do not have one. Besides, instead of trying to fight “the system,” you should accept and try to understand it, and therefore learn how to take advantage of it.
It has no real world application but it provides opportunities? This is the sort of argument that makes no sense. I know exactly when and why I would return to school. You just think that I should because that’s what you’re supposed to do, which is a horrible reason to do anything.
Ryan tackles more books in a month than most people read all 4 years in college. His quest for knowledge and love for research smashes any college curriculum. Look at the stuff he is doing now for Robert and Tucker. Do you think kids enrolled in a state school get those opportunities at that age? Most kids are on a bike when Ryan is on a motorcycle. The rest of us are just trying to keep up.
He’s right, guys. Everyone knows a twenty-year-old who has Tucker-freaking-Max as one of his mentors has a better understanding of what works than the successors of a system that has served as part of the foundation of the western world for the better part of the last 25 centuries.
“Besides, instead of trying to fight “the system,” you should accept and try to understand it, and therefore learn how to take advantage of it.”
A startling revelation. Please, tell us more. No wait. Let me get a beanbag and gather up the children, and you can tell us stories and play your panpipes. Seriously, you’re telling HIM this?
I don’t know Ryan, so, generally speaking…
One thing I have to say about having a mentor you look up to is it’s easy to lose yourself in awe, gratitude, acceptance, etc, which are often adverse to finding your own way.
On the flip side, it’s as easy for a mentor to fall into the adulation trap, which only compounds the problem for the mentored.
I think you have misunderstood the purpose of college, which is to teach students how to think critically.
Even though you clearly have this ability, Ryan, you should get your degree. Although a college education has no real world application, it enables you to have more opportunities than those that do not have one. Besides, instead of trying to fight “the system,” you should accept and try to understand it, and therefore learn how to take advantage of it.
It’s a good thing Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Faulkner, David Geffen (dreamworks CEO), George Carlin, Peter Jackson, Ray Croc, Herman Melville, Most all big name actors in Hollywood, Walt Whitman, and others followed your advice. OH WAIT!
Look, college isn’t a road to success or to failure. It is what it is – one avenue to education and to certain careers. It’s good for some people, and for others it simply isn’t there path. You make your own fucking path, end of discussion. College has nothing to do with it.
I don’t think the original post has much to do with choosing whether or not to finish a degree (or whether or not to listen to “how things are and should be.”)
It sounds like at some point you reflected on the situation and thought “if I hadn’t quit school and tried to do things my own way I wouldn’t be here in this surreal situation”.
Yeah there are plenty of people who go to college because that is generally what you are “supposed” to do after high school, but it doesn’t have to be like that. College is what you make of it and there are plenty of legit reasons for starting/finishing a degree.
I’m sure you thought a lot and eventually came to the conclusion that you could accomplish your goals and better use your time by leaving school than finishing, but anyone can walk into a hispanic neighborhood and watch dogs piss on each other…college student or not.
Not that the point I think you are trying to make isn’t valid (don’t be a schmuck and go to college just because your parents said you need to to get a good job), but this just comes off like a “look how big my d*ck is” kind of a post.
Am I the only one getting those vibes?
Jesus Christ. Not only was the title a JOKE but most of you guys are totally missing the point. Leaving school had almost nothing to do with working for Tucker – after all, he’d employed me for over a year before I left, nor did it have anything to do with watching dogs urinate on each other.
The point is this: When you take big leaps or follow passions, all sorts of weird, crazy, serendipitous things happen. When you stick yourself in a box, limit your ability to strike or take options, only bad things happen. Why? Because they’re the only ones you don’t have the power to control.
FOR ME, leaving school happened to be that. Prior, jumping on the chance to work for some random internet star that my parents hated and very few people ‘got’ was the same thing.
If I wanted to tell you how big my dick was don’t you think I would mention something other than hanging out in Tucker’s yard?
I got nothing out of that post other than that you have a big dick and enjoy watching dogs urinate on each other. What the fuck?
While waiting for the elevator last night, a big black man with what looked liked a mostly empty bag of coal comes and stands next to me. “Oh what’s in the bag?” I asked him. He says what I take to be “hams”. “hams?” “hams.” The elevator comes and I’m still thinking how strange it is that he has hams in what looks to be a bag of rock salt, so I ask him again what’s in the bag and he says the same thing, but this time he smiles and opens the bag. Two small hens calmly look up at me. Hens! Living in Jersey, it’s not often that you meet someone who actually kills their own poultry, let alone in an apartment building. I would never have known that this goes on in apartment buildings had I not recently moved out of my families house. Too bad he didn’t invite me to dinner.
“Ryan tackles more books in a month than most people read all 4 years in college. His quest for knowledge and love for research smashes any college curriculum. Look at the stuff he is doing now for Robert and Tucker. Do you think kids enrolled in a state school get those opportunities at that age? Most kids are on a bike when Ryan is on a motorcycle. The rest of us are just trying to keep up.
Posted by: Nick at February 21, 2008 01:56 AM”
I appreciate Ryan’s drive and intelligence just as much as the next guy, but this kind of idolatry will get you no where. I go to a state school and have enjoyed working with internationally renowned artists and upcoming names in the art world as well. I have formed real bonds with them and they have been great mentors to me. They’ve trusted me to work with them on their projects and I am grateful to them for that. The opportunities are everywhere if you have the courage to face them and not shrivel away in fear of being inadequate.
I suppose since it’s a rarity for people to follow their passion’s, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that many missed the point of his post.
Um…. surreal shit happens almost everywhere, whatever choices you make. If you have the eye for it, you’ll see it even if you’re in prison. Good for you that you have the eye for it, but I don’t see the causal relationship here with your life choices.
In fact, the only thing I’m getting out of this anecdote is the sad metaphor of tucker’s dog pissing on yours and you being “totally happy with that.”
Cognitive biases….hearing what you want to hear…whatever. Most religions (that I know of) reward being a good person. Unless you’ve done your homework, why knock a man that’s trying to be the best he can be?
Religions? Homework? Whatever. Too much ass kissing. Which was, in a roundabout way my point, hence the metaphor.
I’m not down on RH at all, in fact I think that he could be much greater than his heroes if he’ll eventually use his energy to benefit primarily himself. Who produces original content every day, and who lives off of old or other’s content?
It is not because of associating with someone special, or because of having taken a particular path that a person will notice and appreciate the surreal. It works the other way around, it is because you have it to appreciate the surreal that you go down certain paths. Some people just feed off of that energy in others.
If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.
I was drunk so I was guilty of the homework part myself. Ryan has mentioned something on his blog about running his mouth and getting shot down by Tucker, so I doubt the idolatry is too bad.
It’s so awesome when people jump to massive conclusions.
The dog getting pissed on was stuck in a tire. Ryan’s point was that when you trap yourself in a box, you limit your options; And when someone pisses on your face – you can’t respond. He’s left school to remove himself from the box.
The fact this parable takes place in Tucker’s yard isn’t relevant to the meaning.
I’m sure Tucker is delighted that you people see him as a cult leader now, leading Ryan down the merry path to debauchery. I imagine it’s somewhat irritating to Ryan however that so many of you have disregarded his ability to make his own choices and just assumed that he’s jumping through a hoop Tucker has held out.
I never went to college. I went straight into a graduate level role and I’ve had a career, most of which I’ve spent senior to dozens of college graduates – with no college education and little formal education outside of industry focused training. Between 17 and 25, I didn’t attend a formal classroom except to teach. When I did go back to school – it was as an adult, to study a field I wasn’t grasping on my own, that I would have never opted to study as a younger man. It was a vastly better outcome for me then had I followed the prescribed path, picked up one of the many useless degrees I was interested in at 17.
An undergrad degree is only valuable if you want to learn something and it’s the most cost effective way for you to learn it, and there’s a limited scope of circumstances where that will be true for any person; Or if you want one of the opportunities that the piece of paper brings – be that post graduate entry, travel or a job with an employer who values the piece of paper more then the skills.
Reading back through Ryan’s blog – can you really see any of those things being of value to him? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine Ryan’s priorities and where he see’s his future (in at least a general sense) – and a reasoned reading of his content should make it clear what sort of employer he’s likely to end up working for in the event that Tucker stops being a viable source of income.
And if you’re reading his insightful, intelligent and well reasoned content, perhaps you should at least do him the courtesy of assuming that he’s more then Tucker’s puppet, and perhaps even capable of making his own decisions.
Scootah:
you say
“Tucker is delighted that you people see him as a cult leader now leading Ryan down the merry path to debauchery.”
which, though I know you’re exagerating for effect, is still quite a stretch from what anyone was saying. This is ironic to me because you start out by saying
“It’s so awesome when people jump to massive conclusions”
I share your respect for the writing on this blog. Good for you that not going to school worked out for you, it looks like it is working out for RH as well. But avoiding one box doesn’t preclude you from getting stuck in a different one.