one, two, buckle my shoe

In view of my recent unpleasant experiences, I think that life can be divided into exactly two phases:

One, when, we get the chance to use our skills to do useful and nice things
Two, when, we are forced to do useless stuff to learn useful skills

Or putting it differently,

One, when we build our reputation
Two, when we build our character

Or putting it still differently,

One, when we read and enjoy interesting writings
Two, when we struggle at memorising vague symbols by looking at relatively monotonous and ridiculously stupid books.