She seemed to have everything in the word: a high profile job in a great city, seven figure annual paycheck, big house, flashy cars, good friends---things that many others would like to shed blood for. But suddenly she resigned, dropped everything and went abroad to continue her study.

Why? She shrugged and gave us this answer: “In many people’s eyes, I was like Alice in Wonderland, but in fact I was just that girl in red dancing shoes. Every time when I looked into the mirror, stared at the image of myself, I couldn’t help but asking me the same question Is this really I want? When many times I failed to give myself a positive answer, I knew it’s time to leave, time to live for myself.”

What do we study for? Many might say it’s for career development. But is this the only answer? In her case, it’s certainly not. If all she wanted is a higher level, she should stay rather than leave. Even one day she came back with better education, she still needed to start from zero, and she might never reach the same place that she already had.

Here’s another story. A couple sent their son to a famous British University to study. After graduated, the son came back China and found a job, earning 7000 yuan a month. The father is a businessman, out of his professional habit, he did a roughly math: from a baby to a college graduate, he spent about 2.2 million in his son. With his son’s present salary, he probably would need more than 26 years to earn that money back---not including the interests. From financial angle, it’s certainly not a wise investment. But life is not a mathematical problem. And what you’ve gained from learning certainly can’t not be easily calculated as one plus one.

Recently Wangyi’s open class has become very popular. More and more find the courses they are interest and get involved in. Why? Certainly those courses can’t help much in polishing our resume. For me, I took those courses first out of curiosity, wondering what would be like studying in a world-class university. Then I am completely drawn in. I indulge myself in pure pleasure of learning—not just acquiring knowledge or honing skills, but also about opening mind, clearing troubled thoughts, about mindshift and self-fulfillment. Like many others, I used to study for study’s sake. With my career into consideration, study could be boring, exhausting and even tiresome. However, this time I could choose any course that catches my eyes. No more pressures to boost up my career or get great marks, study is like a journey full of surprises.

The speeches in TED( technology, entertainment, design) is so inspiring that I could actually see sparks in the eyes of those speakers. I finally realized what’s study is all about. At least, during daily thirty-minutes in those cyber classes, I were like Alice in Wonderland.