on exploring the forest around the path
My dad once told me a story about his college days in the USSR. In one of his classes, whenever a student asked the professor for their grade, the professor would just say a random number. Nobody knew their grade until the end of the semester. According to my dad, it was the professor's way of saying grades don't really matter as much as the knowledge obtained.
I think about this story a lot.
It's a great philosophy. I ended up not caring about grades, except as a reflection of my own knowledge. I learned as much as I could outside of school, reading textbooks and playing around with what really interested me.
At school and at work, there is often a path laid out for us to follow. Complete these assignments, finish this project, get a good grade. What I learned was that, despite their appearances, these paths are laid out more as a suggestion than as a prescription. In fact, the most interesting things in life are often off the paths. Of course it's fine (and sometimes necessary) to follow a path, but make time for exploring the whole forest as well.
It's your life after all.