Education. The Journey Vs. The Destination
Every single moment of our lives should be filled with different forms of education. Do you agree?
Before you answer, here are the definitions of education:
- The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university
- An enlightening experience
Do you believe that most people spend each of their days with that intent? Where you are at this exact moment, look around. Would you say that the people within your realm of view are intending to be educated based on one or both of those definitions? Education is widely looked upon as a process that only goes on in a school setting. Being “educated” usually means getting to a certain level of understanding in a topic well enough to pass a grade, get a certification, a degree or a diploma.
On average, viewing education from that angle leads to one of two aims:
- To achieve a certain level of education to feel like one has paid his or her educational debt to society. Like a life initiation process. In this case, the certificate, degree or diploma is usually not in the industry the person truly loves, but he or she achieved preferred status.
- To achieve a certain level of education to maintain a lifestyle that the desired educational level earns from their line of work.
If having either of the set aims is the sole intent, it is almost impossible to experience the two definitions of education every day. When you think about it, you really cannot blame a person with one of those aims because in grade school, what was the main point as you were growing up? If you were one of the children who didn’t know exactly what you wanted to be when you grew up like I was, wasn’t your main goal to at least ace the tests so you could move on to the next phase? Wasn’t it the primary goal to make it to the preferred level to maintain a certain grade point average? It makes sense that anyone who went through 12 to 18 years of school was trained to pass tests just to keep moving forward. After a life of those intentions, and then feeling the gratification of walking across a stage, could you see how that style of learning could lead to complacency if there were no more “tests” to pass out in the real world?
On the other side of the spectrum, let’s explore the other definition of education – an enlightening experience which causes some type of awakening internally. A person who goes through an awakening uses that experience to assist in his or her future steps. Regardless of whether the experience was considered positive or negative, if it leads to a form of enlightenment, something was gained from that experience to increase his or her awareness level. If the person remains open to be taught regardless of the daily outcomes, this is also attainable daily. The intent to grow must be larger than the effect of the chain of events. Is this the mindset of how most of the people you know deal with life? Or from your experience, does it seem most people (educated or not) just continue to complain about their never- ending cycle of circumstances?
Today’s college student must take this into full consideration to ensure their lives become lesson plans versus memory contests. Today’s college student must realize that their examples of taking life to unknown levels of productivity are few, so learning instead of repeating is the key to their enlightenment. Due to the normal interpretation of education, today’s college student must constantly self-examine their motives, because humanity’s example of “being educated” usually leads to complacency once certain goals are achieved. To immediately put this plan into action, remember this personal oath regardless of which educative journey you decide to take…
All forms of recognition and/or pain are considered pit stops instead of finish lines.
Say it one more time…
All forms of recognition and/or pain are considered pit stops instead of finish lines