Aloha Steemit Community,
I’m John, a Korean-American, born and raised in Philly, currently splitting time between Singapore and Bangkok, and ready to move on to Australia soon. I just joined the Steemit community today, 19 May. If you wonder why my name is SKWealthAcademy, it stands for my next venture, and no, it’s not a boring, greed-driven financial industry venture, so don’t worry😊. Rather, this venture was born out of a desire to completely change the definition of wealth and to restructure the mission of institutional education, both of which I believe are net destructive to society today instead of contributing positively to a more harmonious, cooperative, and productive society.
Let’s start with the traditional societal definition of wealth that divides people into a successful and unsuccessful category solely based upon what material wealth that person has been able to acquire. This is the definition of wealth that I wholly reject as the adoption of this narrow definition often convinces young children to buy into the narrative of:
(1) study hard to get good grades to
(2) gain entry into a prestigious school to
(3) obtain a job at a prestigious corporation to
(4) obtain the highest paying job possible.
However, in the majority of instances, getting good grades in school does not translate into real learning. In other words, I fully believe that the saying “Knowledge is Power” is wrong, and that real power in life is derived from understanding how to apply knowledge in the real world to improve one’s life, a bridge that is most often completely missing in the institutional educational process. If the knowledge learned is solely for the purpose of getting good grades and is of low utility in life, then this knowledge is not power. While the achievement of good grades and a high GPA may enable us to complete the four-step process outlined above, it often, with great irony, leaves us without the necessary skills to cope with and thrive in the real world.
As many studies have revealed that acquiring as much money as possible will not magically make us happy, I want to restructure the education process to include the acquisition of happiness as a vital part of the educational process, as odd as this may sound to many of you upon first reading this. I truly believe that learning how to be happy is an acquired skill that can be taught, and even though every parent will state that they want his or her child to be happy, almost every parent fails to teach his or her child the skills necessary to be happy. So why not teach this skill in school?
I believe the heavily-flawed missions of the institutional education system, including the singular focus on the achievement of high grades and book smarts that often necessitate the regurgitation of facts and information with no real learning, produce young adults that are often very ill-equipped to build an independent, happy life for themselves upon graduation. In turn, the undue stress heaped upon young adults as they are processed through the institutional education system often churns out millions of young adults overwhelmed by feelings of isolation and confusion upon graduation, when they realize that thousands of hours of sitting in a classroom, year after year, sadly provided little value beyond low-value book smarts, without the provision of much more valuable "life" smarts.
However, I believe that the flaws of the institutional academic system are reversible and solvable, and that a greatly revised education system can produce curious, critical-thinking adults bursting with intellect, properly equipped not only to tackle real-world struggles, but also to conquer them as well. Real learning and education should foster a young adult’s sense of confidence, self-esteem and compassion and quite significantly improve his or her ability to build an enhanced quality of life upon graduation. The pursuit of good grades seems, to me, to achieve none of these goals, and for this reason, I believe that the educational process must be overhauled to provide much greater "life value".
Furthermore, an equally important goal of mine is to help redefine wealth into a more holistic perspective that is not solely based on the narcissistic current version of financial wealth only, but that also equally values the acquisition of:
(1) a wealth of daily sustainable happiness and emotional health,
(2) a wealth of rich, rewarding relationships, and
(3) a wealth of physical health
in a socially-conscious manner that benefits not just the self, but benefits all of humanity. The complete lack of the above 3-pursuits inherent in the global educational system is often the reason we all have heard of, or know of, people that have acquired every monetary asset they ever dreamed of acquiring when they were young, yet still find themselves supremely unhappy. I believe that society’s definition of wealth is an emotionally sick definition that we must change if we are going to build a better future for all of humanity.
I will have much more to say about both of these topics soon, so stay tuned. I hope that, in this introduction to the wonderful Steemit community, I ably provided a brief glimpse into the world that drives my life at this moment and time. If I had to sum up my life philosophy, I would say I steal a little bit from Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Bob Marley, Tupac and JC. If my welcome message resonates with you and you want other people to hear about this movement I am building to change the way in which the world perceives wealth, success and education, please help me translate this message into multiple languages, so that I may re-post this message in languages other than English to spread it to as many people as possible around the world. You will forever have my gratitude and thanks, and furthermore, receive blessings for giving blessings! And yes, even though I am Korean-American, I still need help in translating this message into Korean :)
Right now, you can follow me on SnapChat, username: skwealthacademy. I post nearly every day there. On M-F, I snapchat mostly financial/wealth topics and on Sat-Sun, mostly about philosophical issues and life in general.
Nice to meet everyone here, and let’s walk this walk together with as many people as possible.
Bless up,
John