Even the smallest moments in our lives can capture stunning implications of the universe and its truths. These realizations that dawn on each of us are not some sort of ethereal message but rather the culmination of experience. Experience builds character and cultivates knowledge, but oftentimes these realizations we have as individuals are what provide a strong sense of initiative to our lives. We are not meant to truly learn by being told what is right and what is wrong. The education we receive in school is the basis for our learning, but application is an entirely different aspect. This was my personal realization that was the result of years of education and experience. This was the realization that forever changed my mindset as a student.

As a child, the world around me was filled with unknown mysteries and so much scope for discovery and imagination. Like most children, I developed an irrevocable sense of curiosity and was constantly asking questions about these mysteries that I could not understand. Why could birds perch on the power line without getting electrocuted? Why did I see dew drops on the grass as I walked to my bus stop? This mindset is what I found began to deteriorate as I aged and became more concerned with the conventional side of education: grades, homework, and concentrating on the curriculum taught in school. These aspects are indeed integral to building an individual’s knowledge, but is that truly it? I never remember losing this desire to unlock the truths that surrounded me, but I did. In middle school and my past few years of high school, I’ve found myself no longer as inquisitive as I was before. I have unknowingly let go of the part of myself that allows students to truly be great. I have unknowingly forgotten the true value of exploration.

My father embodies the ideal of intellectual exploration and has always urged me to expand my horizons by reading. He has told me that what I learn in school only touches the surface, and that I alone hold the key to exploring deeper. One summer, he had given me many books covering a wide array of topics, from the golden ratio phi to expanding your vocabulary. He urged me to read them, and I remember being unwilling. “Why though?” I asked. “I haven’t learned this in school and it will just be a waste of time.” My father furrowed his brow and I remember the look in his eyes as one of disappointment but also of humor. “Because your education is not confined to the classroom,” he said, “and because everything in the world has the potential for exploration.” I reluctantly read the books, not out of interest but in order to appease my father. I was unimpressed and unmoved, but what occurred in the time following that summer was astonishing. My realization did not come in a dramatic fashion, and others most likely did not sense any profound change in who I was or what I believed in. But encompassed in one moment, many days after that summer had passed, was my realization of the key to the pursuit of knowledge.

I contributed my formerly bland approach to education mostly to my naiveté but also to a pervasive laziness. It came to me that I still had that part of myself that was irreversibly inquisitive and eager but that it had been suppressed for so long. In English class one day, as I wrote, I felt an unexplainable rush as all the vocabulary I had read and learned over the summer suddenly came alive. Not only did they enhance my qualities as a writer, but they provided such a widened spectrum for expression and purpose tomy writing. I suddenly realized the beliefs my father had indoctrinated; I suddenly once again felt like the child who found the world a mystical place which held an abundance of undiscovered knowledge.

At fifteen, my world suddenly was seen through the eyes of a five year old’s curiosity. Previously, when I had sat under the oak tree in my yard, I had felt the embrace of the vast sky above, felt the gentle caress of the breeze, and noted the unending variety of plants and flowers that surrounded me. But had I truly seen what was around me? So much had changed in me as I had finally found that I was not only a student to the teachers at school but also to the world I lived in. I felt the memories of my childhood rush back into me, liberating my mind. I closed my eyes. Why could birds perch on the power line without getting electrocuted? Why did I see dew drops on the grass as I walked to my bus stop?

Oftentimes, amongst the piles of schoolwork and the pressure for good grades, we forget the true meaning of learning. We forget the true reason that we are in school, and we forget the innovative and visionary thoughts that fuel our society. It is because of the people like my father, who understand that the desire to learn is also the desire to challenge the world. It is the drive not only to understand more but also to be willing to apply this knowledge and advance your individual well-being. It is in understanding what education means to you. It may come to anyone at any time, but when you come to have your own personal realization, the world becomes a place for you to control and for you to explore. As my father once told me as a child, “always remember that there are no boundaries to the extent of your thought and imagination.”