They’re not better before it, either

“Must everything we do satisfy someone else before it’s worthwhile?  Is everything we do because we enjoy it selfish and useless?  Primary school, secondary school, university, they’ve got the first twenty-four years of our lives numbered off for us and to get into the year above we’ve got to pass an exam.  Everything is done to please the examiner, never for fun.  The one pleasure they allow is anticipation: ‘Things will be better after the exam.’  It’s a lie.  Things are never better after the exam.” – Alasdair Gray, Lanark (emphasis in original)