School taught you to follow rules and get “right” answers, but that’s why the smartest kids aren’t always the most successful adults. Here’s how to break free.
The story
Ever wonder why the smartest kid in your high school class isn’t necessarily the most successful one now?
Attila B. Horvath’s book “The Journey” tackles this head-on. His argument: our education system wasn’t designed to help you thrive as an individual. It was built to create compliant workers who follow the rules.
Think about it. School rewards you for getting the “right” answers – the ones everyone else agrees on. You learn to chase grades, then degrees, then job titles. But here’s the problem: none of that actually teaches you who you are or what you’re uniquely capable of.
Horvath calls this process “individuation” – breaking free from the autopilot settings society programmed into you. It’s not about rejecting everything you learned. It’s about filtering life through your own lens instead of borrowing everyone else’s.
The first two chapters of his book lay out why this matters and how to start. He references William James’s idea that your thoughts literally shape your reality. Your beliefs, your choices, your attitude – these determine your path forward, not some predetermined blueprint.
Here’s what that looks like: You become your own teacher. You question assumptions everyone takes for granted. You build habits that reflect your actual values, not what your parents or professors told you to value. You reframe failure as data collection instead of defeat.
Nobody can do this inner work for you. Not your boss, not your mentors, not your friends. The work of finding the real you – the one buried under years of “should” and “supposed to” – that’s entirely on you.
For more about Chapters 1-2 of Attila B. Horvath’s book, “The Journey – I wish I knew this before I was 21”, visit https://attilahorvath.net/the-journey.
