School
School, we would imagine it as a place where we learn mathematics, science, arts, history, and literature. But looking back, I see we learned far, far deeper beliefs than just a bunch of information in our brains. School is built by society, so it mirrors society perfectly. We were sent not only to gain knowledge, but to be trained in the ways of human society. In our innocence, we thought we were gaining knowledge, but we were blind to what we were losing.
Fifteen years of sitting in classrooms among peers and friends, with a stream of teachers coming and going. We would look up to them to tell us if we were perfect, good enough, or right. Those grade cards, those claps, those pats on the back for a perfect 10/10 drilled deep into our nervous system the belief that: You are worthy only if you achieve this perfect score.
Those raised hands to answer questions, to show off that we had read everything, to show everyone how much we know, drilled into us that: We need to work hard, achieve, and show off to be seen.
Those red lines on the exam sheets, reminding us again and again that we could have been better, we could have been perfect, and our nervous system learnt that: Small mistakes are a sign of unworthiness, and you must not make mistakes.
That grading system, the sneaking glances to see if our friends were working harder than us, whether we were doing better or worse. Parents telling us how the neighbor’s kid did better than us. And so we learned: Friends are not really friends. They are competition. Life is a ladder to climb to the top of your peers. Life is a competition.
Exams, oh exams. The final judgment drilled into us the belief that: There is always a final judgment coming in your life. It will determine how worthy you are, whether you are enough or not.
And the school never really left any of us. That innocent child went thinking, I am going to gain knowledge, but what they got instead was a worldview. A worldview that taught the most fundamental belief we all now hold: You need to live and work for external validation, for pats, for grades, for applause. That only when you are validated externally, you are worthy. And even if you have to hurt yourself, exhaust yourself, and push yourself beyond your limits to get that validation, only then are you worthy.
School Never Left
The school never really left any of us. There is somewhere that little kid still raising hands and screaming, See me. See me. Am I good enough? Did I do well? Did I do right?
The teacher is now the whole outside world: people, bosses, mentors, followers, and, for some, God. We easily assume that God is someone at the top, sitting and judging us for each and every action. Grade him +1 grade him -1. We assume that life is somewhere outside, continuously judging us if we are enough. So we are still that little kid searching for imaginary parents, teachers to grade us, and say if we are worthy or not.
We are still looking around to see if anyone is noticing. We chase money, power, status, confidence, looks, and charms. Some of us deeper chase knowledge, meditation, spirituality, healed nervous systems, love, and so on. The list continues, but what remains is the same – the chase, excellence, and an imaginary exam. We are still chasing, and we think that at the end, if we achieve a 10/10 grade in this area, we will finally be enough, finally be worthy. People will finally see me, notice me, look at me. The imaginary God, parents, and teacher will finally pat me on my back and tell me I am worthy. These people around us will finally look at my achievement and clap at my achievement.
So we live in hustle, work hard, work more, do more, be more, become something, become extraordinary, become perfect, become best, at something, anything. And even if you have to hurt your body, even if you have to spend the whole night not sleeping, even if you have to eat ramen every night just to save some time, even if I have to abuse myself, I have to keep going. I need that clap, need that pat, need someone to tell me finally I am worthy.
The Fake Clap
You force yourself to work. A project, a PhD, a book, poetry, a presentation, a million dollars, a perfect body day in, day out at the gym. And then one day, you were on the stage: A book launch, a PhD defense, a post on social media, or maybe a TED talk, a podcast. 30 minutes on the stage and 2 minutes of applause by strangers who will forget your name the next morning.
They will clap because clapping is what you do when someone finishes speaking.
We think clapping is care, but people who clap only care about themselves. The crowd that claps for your millions is not clapping because they are happy for you; they are clapping because your success represents their own lack. The researcher who sent an email praising your well-written research paper, it not celebrating you, a part of him is thinking, ‘Wow, I wish I could have done that.’ We have been programmed in childhood to assume the claps for love and affection, but what it is is competition.
You can see this everywhere in life. You worked so hard to achieve something, thinking that when you finally did it, the world would stop and notice you. You imagined that the moment would be glorious, that people would finally see you. But when the moment arrives, it comes as quietly as any ordinary moment. The world keeps moving. People go about their lives. Why would they care? You wrote a poem about trees, but a thousand people have a thousand things in their heads, bills to pay, families to feed, arguments to resolve, their own inner storms. Your poem, to them, barely exists. You wrote a research paper, and others will simply scroll past because, in the vast chaos of existence, it’s just one tiny thing among millions.
And you will be standing there, exhausted, and almost relieved it’s finally over. You could finally breathe. You could stop your self-abuse now as you have arrived. It’s the same feeling when exams were over. You didn’t really felt like celebrating, what you felt was a relief that hurting my body is over, self-abuse is over, finally I can breathe a bit. So we have been living in this cycle, finding exams over and over again, just so that we could take a breath. We keep creating tests for ourselves so that, in the end, we can justify resting.
If I get to that milestone, finally, I am enough. If I can get to that place, that job, that success, finally, I will be done. If I get married, or if I can have that 20-year-long relationship, then finally I will have proved myself.
We keep on creating exams in our little heads, so that we can breathe when the exam is over. Because this is what is taught to us in school, you can only play when the class is over, you can only watch your favorite cartoon when you finish your homework, and you can finally go on a vacation when the exams are over.
We are made to think, we are not allowed to breathe, to relax, because we are not there yet. We have to pass an imaginary idea, exam, test, and finally, then we can breathe. And in this grasping for success, for trying to prove yourself, life slips by.
The Subtle Punishment
Life punishes self-harm and abuse in far, far more subtle ways than most people can ever comprehend. It does not play drums, give you thunderbolts; it shows a mirror everywhere.
Your children see you working too hard just to gain validation from others. They see you sacrifice your health, sleep, and peace just to prove that you are enough. And without saying a word, they learn; this is what life is – a slavery mentality, a life lived for others’ approval even at the cost of own well-being. They grow up carrying the same belief: I must earn my worth by proving myself to others.
Your partner sees it. She watches you overextend yourself, always saying yes when you should rest, always giving more than you should, and she can’t help but lose trust. Because if you can sacrifice your own well-being for external approvals, you would easily sacrifice her just to prove you are enough to others.
Your colleagues and subordinates see it as well. They watch you pour too much into work, even when it’s hurting you. And they can’t help but lose respect – because deep down they sense that you are unconsciously asking them to do the same. When you abuse yourself in an attempt to prove yourself, you also invite others to abuse themselves.
In this way, self-harm, self-abuse propagates in life – quietly, unconsciously, without anyone noticing. The energy spreads like cancer, shaping families, the workplace, and generations. And life, in its own cosmic unity, keeps trying to show you. Through exhaustion, through broken trust, through your children’s sadness, through your own loneliness, it keeps whispering: You are doing it wrong. You are doing it wrong.
The Myth
There is a myth that life, God, universe is going to pat you on your back because you work too hard to prove yourself. It is going to give you an A+ mark for your hard work, and tell you that finally you are worthy, you are enough.
It is true – if you want to get ahead in society, get claps from people around, then you need to do hard work. To climb the ladder, to win the competition. But one day you will find yourself sitting at the top, with everything you chased, but lonely, disconnected, and tired. You will find your hard work has not much value when it comes to love, relationships, children, family, and your own peace.
Life does not care if you worked very, very hard to achieve something. It cares if you cared for it in the process of achieving it. Because the life that flows in you is the life that flows in everything around you. Every self-abuse, self-hurt, self-disrespect will send a ripple around you, because you hurt something far alive in you in the name of trying to show yourself off and just to prove that you are enough.
The exams are not coming
Real success, real creativity, happens far more effortlessly than we are taught in school to believe. It is not born from endless hard work, but from alignment, an energetic harmony between who you are and the life around you. It’s not luck, and it’s not control; it’s the natural rhythm that appears when your essence meets the right environment. Then it sounds like a dangerous thing, because not everything is in our control.
Like a mango seed that finds the right soil, the right season, and the right sunlight, growth happens because everything aligns. You could be that mango seed, fighting all your life to become a coconut tree, just because people around you want coconuts and not mangoes. And if you do that, you will live a disappointed life, constantly striving, constantly proving, constantly uprooted from what you truly are. So this I know, if life feels like a constant struggle, survival, it is a life that is against your own truth, essence of who you are.
But if you can simply grow as a mango tree, even if no one notices, no one praises, no one tastes your fruit, you will be at peace. Because you are what you are meant to be, and there is no regret in that. One day, maybe a rabbit will come and eat your mango, and you will feel a joy a thousand times greater than the fake claps you once chased.
The real work, then, is to accept that you might think you are in control, and you can fight all your life to prove it, but you will only disappoint yourself. So life is not asking for this constant planning, seeking, trying to become, trying to be something else, and living in this constant anxiety of I am not there yet. It is asking to be felt, to be lived, and to be experienced.
So next time you look out the window, there is sunlight and the trees are dancing, something inside whispers let’s go for a walk. Go because in the end, that is what matters. The exams are not coming anymore to judge you, to grade you, to tell you if you are enough. They were never coming. And the little whispers of your heart are far, far more intelligent than our school-trained minds will ever be.
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