Some folks are very proud of where they matriculated…
…and what their degree is in, and they should be. But then some “lord” their school, along with their personal status at graduation, the clubs they belonged to, and the friends they made (some are now pretty famous). I’m happy for great education experiences, but for everyone that brags about their own awesomeness, there are plenty more, and maybe the majority, who are simply happy to be alive and kicking! Regardless of their matriculation status.
There are many who graduated from the “School of Hard Knocks” and those are probably the most successful ones I know – they’ve taken what life has dished out and proved their mettle to anyone who would listen. Even with a degree. From an Ivy League University….or the local community college.
A degree does not make you smarter than anyone else, but as I have learned later in life – a degree is not to pound facts into your brain (anyone can do this), rather, it’s to teach me how to learn, think with an expanded perspective and experience the world around me in a somewhat differently organized fashion. My education, when I’ve applied myself to it correctly, opened up the world of wonder and I slipped into a new framework of exploration.
Yesterday, a friend made a comment that caught my attention, and it went something like this:
Too many have a degree in Foot Dragging.
Ain’t this the truth! They never get anything done! You know that old adage about the best time to plant a shade tree that you get to enjoy today. Right? You’ve not heard it? Well, to enjoy it today that tree should have been planted 20 years ago!
Someone gets close to a milestone victory lap and you ask, “What have you done to prepare?” “Oh, nothing. Que Sera, Sera…” Wait. You plan on enjoying retirement without having prepared for it? Going to take a test, and you haven’t studied? Start to build a house and you’ve not applied for permits? Or drawn up plans? Really?
So. Not having a degree in Foot Dragging, you propose a possible solution to the proud graduate. They drag themselves, and you, through the mud puddle of negatives to prove that it cannot be done, and here’s a hundred reasons why not…
I’m at a point of being like Jesus, although these words were applied to a different problem.
And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. (Matthew 10:14 NKJV)
Shake the dust, or washing your hands off the subject… That’s showing that you can not condone or be responsible for the actions or thought processes of the person in question!
It was Colin Powell who famously stated: “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” [Source] You have to prepare… Work hard… And when you make mistakes, and you will, then you have to learn from that mistake. Quit getting back up from your mistakes, and eventually you will agree to be the failure that last stumble said you were. You are never a failure if you get back up again. (Proverbs 24:16)
I keep myself in the “learning” mode. There’s so much to know, and so little time! I do not have an ear for music, but I wonder why I struggle with wanting to play the keyboard… Maybe there’s still time. But I am focusing on learning more ancient Hebrew and Greek for my biblical studies. I really want to grasp how the language worked during the times that the bible was penned.
Another friend (thank’s Brett) reminded a group of folks that wasting time watching all those reruns instead of being productive was not a wise use of time. We should be accountable for how we spend the moments of our lives.
It’s never too late. Turn the TV off. Get up. Leave that foot dragging mode next to the curbside for the rubbish and trash pickup. Apply yourself to something productive.