What we choose...

So, I have cut back on some things in my life and am excited about the new paths that my family will be taking.
I am decluttering my life and have felt some serious peace following each decision.

Yesterday I had a great conversation, regarding High School, with my eldest son.
I expressed my thoughts on the subject in a non judgemental, non persuasive manner.  I want him to make that decision for himself, if that is what he is wanting to do.  I can understand that he thinks that he is, or might be, missing something because of the fact that most of his friends attend some type of school.  My stand was that learning doesn't only happen at school and that anything that he wants to know about is at his finger tips.  That he doesn't have to go somewhere to have someone tell him what is important for him to know, that he gets to choose what those things are and make decisions that are best for him and his desires. 
I talked with him about my knitting.  I explained that I didn't go to a class or school type location to learn to knit, that I taught myself because I wanted to know.  That one day, I just wanted to know and so I started doing research and practicing, with trial and error, to get what I wanted.  I explained to him that I can now make hats and other things but that no particular person told me how to make hats and that I wasn't told to make them in a specific way, using a specific pattern and that I wasn't tested on my knitting skills to see if I could really knit or not.  No one gave my knitting an evaluation score and I haven't felt discouraged by a teacher giving me a C- on a hat that I might have felt like deserved an A.  My hats are what they are and I am pleased with them.
I shared that, though a professional knitter may find my skills "not up to their par", I am enjoying what I am doing.  And, my outcome is still a hat.  I may not do stitches the way that they believe that I should do them, but the stitches that I do make work for me.  I still have the outcome of a hat and I am pleased with how that hat looks and the hat is functional.  I could see that there might be an issue if it didn't even resemble a hat or had a bunch of holes all over it but it is still my hat and if I am pleased with it, then that is what matters.  I also talked with him about the fact that no one gave me the pattern for the hat.  I didn't go to a school to learn about the hat pattern.  I made up my own.  It is my pattern.  No one else's hat looks like mine, unless by some chance they happen to do the same stitches that I did.
My hat is an original.
I enjoy knitting, I find peace and joy in it.  If I was forced to knit growing up, I don't know that I would have enjoyed it.  I might have had great stitches, but never knit because I was told I had to know how to do it.  And generally we are taught "stuff" in school as kids and are without understanding how it could really benefit our lives from having that skill or knowledge.
Until it became important enough for me to know or desire to know, I wasn't passionate about it. 
Just like his interest in Ninja's.  Where that will lead, I do not know but he is enjoying what he is finding out.