It’s coming to the end of exam season for university and senior high school students around here. And a friend articulated the challenge of what I’m calling “The Examination Paradox”. It goes like this:
Exams are really important, and you should prepare really well for them.
And they’re not important at all.
Like many (most?) things that are true, it’s paradoxically true.
What else is really important, but also not at all important?
Owning a house?
Parking your car in a garage?
How many children you have?
What school you go to?
What job you have?
How much you earn? (this one definitely starts of entirely important, and only becomes also unimportant at a certain level)
What clothes you wear?
Where you live?
What else? And of the conflicting (but true) statements, which one dominates the way you approach that element of your life?