What is learning for?
What is the purpose of work?
What is the meaning of living?
What is the difference between a wise ruler and a tyrant who both turn into a clump of dust after their death?
These are a series of questions that have been troubling my son recently.
The flowers are blooming
Dad was scared when he first heard these questions from his son: “How can you think about these questions?”
The school teacher told me, “The child doesn’t seem to be as focused at school as he used to be, he used to be able to remember everything the teacher explained, but now he’s not as attentive, and he’s a bit panicky.”
I was also afraid, “What’s wrong with you, my child? Why are you not concentrating on your studies anymore? Are you addicted to games? Will your academic performance go downhill from now on? You’ve always been the pride of your mother!
Are you experiencing the same problem? Yes, I was just like you at first, full of fear, dread and confusion, until I understood one thing.
You know what? In our lifetime, besides building a knowledge system, we also build something called a cognitive system. We all know the knowledge system very well, that is, we go to school, to books to learn those knowledge, but what is the cognitive system?
Simply put, the cognitive system is the judgment and choice of things, and people’s life relies on the cognitive system to lead us forward, whether we choose apples or peaches, choose to watch movies or sing, choose whether to travel, choose who to spend your life with, all these choices are done under the guidance of your cognitive system. Figuratively speaking, the cognitive system is the navigation in your life.
Without navigation, a car will not know which road to follow; without navigation, a ship will be lost in the sea; and without navigation, a person’s life will lose momentum and have no direction.
Some people may say, I am so old and yet I have never heard of and never constructed a cognitive system. Yes! That’s right! Some people come earlier, some come later, and some may not actively build their own cognitive system throughout their lives! Nevertheless, you will unknowingly build your own cognitive system, just you do not know it is called cognitive system.
We often hear “I retired before I worked much” when someone retires, or “Hey! That’s all I’ve done in my life!” Yes, that’s because many people do not actively build their own cognitive system, they just follow their feelings, follow their environment, and slide down the slide of time. He does not know what he wants or what he can get. In such a life, life is living.
However, our parents gave us life and let us have the privilege to come to this wonderful world for a walk, shouldn’t we cherish these short decades to experience more things we want to experience, to see more sights we want to see, to try more possibilities?
So, congratulations, when your child is thinking about these questions, it proves that he is building his own cognitive system! With a goal in mind, you have a direction under your feet. Only when you build your own cognitive system, you can stimulate more source kinetic energy and more possibilities in life.
Let’s talk about parents. We want our children to have good grades and go to a good school, and we want to go to a good university and get a good job according to our expectations. This is also our own cognitive system to guide our children on their life path. What are good grades? What is a good school? What is a good job? These are all judgments that we make. But what we think is good is also the best for our child? Is it what is best for him or what he likes and is good at?
When a child is young, especially a relatively well-behaved child, he will listen to his parents’ words and study hard and get good grades easily, but if he is older, if he does not approve of what we do, he will not be so motivated to study, so will he still get good grades so easily? In other words, if he doesn’t know what it means to get good grades, he doesn’t know what it means to go to school, he doesn’t know what it means to work, he doesn’t know what it means to live, then what motivation does he have to study? What motivation will he have to work well and live well in the future?
When children ask these questions, parents tend to avoid them, or even consider them to be negative questions, and we desperately want to curb our children from thinking about them. But can we really stop them? It’s a life in exploration!
So don’t we have to do anything? No. Doing nothing is also irresponsible! This is the best time to guide your child’s growth, we can give him proper guidance, guide him to explore the value of life, guide him to slowly form his own perception. Because in the end, the life we plan for him is no substitute for the life he wants for himself.
I said to my son, “This holiday, let’s do a research report to investigate the ‘origin and meaning of work’, so you can not only understand the problem, but also learn some research methods, do you want to?” My son gladly agreed. At that moment, I sighed in my heart: Son, you are good! You are trying to grow up, and mom is growing up with you!
I deeply understand that actively building a cognitive system may not guarantee to spend your life as you originally intended, but it is enough to give you an active, abundant, colorful and interesting life.
Life is just a few decades, really fast, but these decades if we consciously do something, we will make a lot of meaningful things, then what is meaningful things, all things in itself does not have any meaning, the meaning is that we give it meaning, if we give it meaning, we feel happy sense of accomplishment, we feel that he is worth it, yes life is like Life is like a game, doesn’t it require us to set up the rules of the game and then challenge ourselves to complete it?
In the end, the cognitive system is an active consciousness, a consciousness that actively uses your thoughts to determine actions, a consciousness that actively collects and processes information, a consciousness that actively goes about your life. It is very rare for a child to think this way at such a young age.
What is the purpose of going to school?
What is the purpose of work?
What is the purpose of living?
When your child asks these questions, don’t be afraid, don’t worry, congratulations! That’s him building his own cognitive system. Only when he figures this out, he will get the key to master his own initiative in life, and he will be more motivated to live, learn and work.
In short, how big the cognitive system is, how big your pattern is; how big the pattern is, how big the breadth and richness of your life will be. Lastly, I would like to share one sentence with all parents: If we can’t be the guide in our children’s lives, then please don’t be the stumbling block in their lives! At least we can grow up together with him!
