Trusting in the process

When I was in school and I was just ignoring all that nonsense my economics teacher was teaching in A Levels, and not giving standard answers to exam question. I insisted on spending space in my exam script ranting against the impracticality of the economic theory I was using to explain the real world phenomenon just paragraphs ago – demonstrating that I already know what they wanted me to show I know while also how I don’t agree with it.

In my heart then, I knew what I was trying to learn. In fact, I did my own reading, continued to score Cs an Ds on all economics papers until I reached A Levels. I went on to graduate from LSE with First Class in BSc Economics. I trusted in the process of learning, of reading up, studying, observing and thinking. I did not care to follow mere processes that enabled one to produce result in exams – I wanted to learn, not just be schooled.

Having grown up, I find it amazing I had that tenacity in my teenage. Perhaps it was the rebellious years but nowadays, when I achieve some minor success I’m swayed to start finding hacks to be able to achieve outcomes rather than just trust and follow a process. It is so important that we don’t hit ourselves too hard just because of an outcome even when we have followed the right processes faithfully.