Arrogance, perspective and benchmarking!

Being back as a student and being in my fourth decade does have some brilliant advantages as well as some disadvantages.

One of the true advantages is the change in your own perspective that being a student brings. Having worked for 4-5 years prior to re-entering college meant that I had some exposure to the working world. The student life may be another planet but I believe it is a much leveller playing field and some people may see it like being retired.

This may sound a bit odd but honestly it is. Think about it, we spend so much of our social time talking about work and benchmarking ourselves against each other that we sometimes forget the art of conversation.

When I meet with some of the, “tax contributing non sponging”, it becomes apparent that the conversation has a tendency to evolve around the benchmark. I will admit that I am more than guilty of this and even now I do engage in it. However I am also slowly getting bored of keeping up with the Jones’s and making sure that I have ticked those social and career conversation boxes that make me apparently a better person.

I am not foolish to think that nature doesn’t depend on survival of the fittest but people telling me about how much they have spent, how wonderful they are, what pay scale they are on and how shit someone is in comparison to them, is really beginning to fatigue me.

Compare this to the typical student conversation. What are you doing at the minute? Any summer plans? Pass the exams? Have you been working? Any good new music?

Yes I know all student conversations aren’t like the above but they do have a tendency not to benchmark or compare sizes.