As I was packing and sorting things today, I was deciding what to do with my diplomas. They've only actually been hanging on the wall once. It's harder to get them hung right than it was to get the degrees they are associated with. Anyway, as I was contemplating them, I was thinking about their value. The speaker at my graduation from MSU said something that rings very true: "Now your education begins." How true that is. I love academia. I love studying and taking classes. I love having an intellectually stimulating conversation with someone. But these things have filled my head with knowledge that has meant relatively little as I have lived life. You know what having my master's degree means? I can now write MA after my name. Which I have done on my graduation announcements and my resignation letter.
All the initials in the world mean nothing. They are letters after your name. The hard work and effort that were put into getting those initial was important. And it should not be discounted. But the amount of book learning a person has does not define that person. For those of us that keep going back to school because we love school, the need for intellectual stimulation is an important attribute. But it's not the number of degrees we achieve that makes us who we are. Some of my best conversations have been with the "uneducated" who have been through the most important classroom ever: life. Living life gives us the best education. And it doesn't cost nearly as much as a new degree.
I absorb knowledge like a sponge, and I enjoy it like you wouldn't believe. But my identity has been forged in the fires of reality, not in the sterile environment of a classroom. Thus part of the reason I don't feel it makes much sense to expect kids graduating out of high school or college to know what they want to do with their lives. What opportunity have they been afforded to determine who they are? They're still babies. It seems so strange to realize that I have been out of undergrad for nearly 7 years. I feel so much older than the kids graduating today. Not because I feel old (though some days I do) but because in 7 years, I have lived more life than these youngsters have lived in their 20-22 years. Not true of all of them. Some of the kids I worked with in foster care had lived more life in the couple years I worked with them than most people have in their entire lives.
But the past 7 years have aged me. And like fine wine, I think (perhaps foolishly so) that I have gotten better with age. I am more likely to take my time, enjoy the daily moments that make life beautiful. I am more able to recognize how my generally driven personality can get in the way of my contentment. I pay more attention to the positive moments that come out of the painful moments. I can actually hear friends when they talk about themselves. At the moment, I also feel a little trigger shy, a little commitment-phobic. But a dear friend reminded me that I need to refocus, rebalance, and I will soon become able to set my course again. But for the time being, I'm not even trying to figure out what to do next. I'm just enjoying finding out things about myself like how much sleep I need each night to really function and what keeps me awake at night aside from nightmares and work stress.
So now that I have some education under my belt, I'm looking forward to my next round of classroom learning. Perhaps now I will be able to see real world application before I'm actually back in the real world.
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