Live well, work hard, play play? 
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We may have already died without even realising it.
They say that at the end of an education you are set free. You are equipped with all you need to face the world. You are ready. You have your whole future ahead of you. This is, of course, a rather convenient lie.
It’s easy enough to believe this myth, this constant assertion from our parents, from Society, from our wonderful education system or what passes for one in certain places. But I have found, in my own personal experience, that the world may be ready for us, but we are never ready for the world, if all we have is simply an education.
As a kid, I wasn’t a geek or a nerd or anything interesting like that. I wasn’t smart. I was consistently at the top of my class though, and managed to scrape through to university as expected of me. I did my bachelor degree in telecommunications engineering (something old school ingénieurs would certainly scoff at, I’m sure) and then, in a fit of insanity, went to Germany to pursue a Master’s in the same ridiculous discipline that I neither liked nor understood. Subsequently, I even did an MBA because it’s always cool getting another acronym-ed certification. (Plus I assumed I needed to study ‘management’ if I were to become a manager.)
It was great. I was getting an education, plenty of it in fact. The only problem was: I wasn’t learning a single damn thing.
See, it’s quite different getting an education and being busy attending lectures and passing examinations versus actually learning anything useful from all that. Most of us — well, certainly me — have a tendency to assume once we have graduated, we’re quite done. Now off to a glamorous job with a decent pay package that we are obviously entitled to after all those years slogging at tutorials and theses. And some of us even get that. But we stop learning, if ever we were learning before, even. The thing is, if we don’t keep learning, if we have stopped learning, then we are already dead, just automatons filing through the production lines of someone else’s life.
Does it matter if our bodies grow and age, that our bank accounts expand or diminish, if our minds, if our hearts and our souls and our passions stay stagnant and rapidly expire? Yes, rapidly — you’d be surprised how quickly the mundane routines of a “good day” can set a pattern from which we rarely escape. We build our homes and our comfort zones and refuse to budge from either. We become fearful beings, greedily and pettily protecting what we think we own, whatever possessions that make up ourcurrent market value. We transform into robots that constantly calculate what they are worth.
I fear we may be worth nothing if we don’t move, if we accept everything that is thrown at us, if we regard evil as an unavoidable nuisance in our daily lives that can be tolerated if we ignore it enough. History has no lessons for us, for we seem unable to learn from it. I must admit that my reluctance to learn in the past, to try something new has cost me greatly. And have I learned from this lesson — of not learning?
One thing I have learned from one of my friends, from my mentor — this incredibly strong and spirited woman who never stops learning — is this: She fears not making mistakes, only not having made them, because she knows a life without having made mistakes is to have not really lived a life at all.
She never stops learning, and she gives back to those around her, she gives so much more than anyone else I know. I have learned to be ashamed of myself for quitting this path of learning (perhaps I have never stepped foot on it in the first place). I have learned that that is okay. I am inspired. I want to do more, to be more of who I can be. To make my life worth something, not in dollars and cents, but in how much I can contribute and grow and help others do the same. It may be the end of education for me but today I am learning and shall do so till I cease.
Can’t wait to make my first mistake of the day — and to learn from it! 
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~ * ~
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For Ellyne — teacher, friend and inspiration.
Artwork by Kenny Mah using photography by Herman Hooyschuur.
haha i like how u quickly dealt with all the acrynoyms that existed b4 jumping at work..
thats y i left masters and mba out of the dictionary so i can jump back at them once we are too comfortable seating our asses at our 9-5 job..
“… once we are too comfortable seating our asses at our 9-5 job…”
I wish I could get me some of that ass-seated comfort since I’m flying around all the time these days… Oh woe is me and jet lag and fatigue and insomnia and… waitaminute. Can you get jetlag if you’re flying around in the same time zone?
OMG, deja vu! I was just having this conversation at 1AM this morning – for most of us, we know what we need to do to keep learning but we still don’t, we hold on to our safety blankets, a grip as sure as death. It disturbs me to no end but here I am, still dying.
Don’t die, don’t… Though that safety blanket sure looks comfortable… And warm… and cosy…
Heck, let me join you!
Kenny, honestly I am inspired after reading this. Exactly what I’m looking forward to do before I graduated. I may dislike them classroom learning, but one thing I’m looking forward in my life is to contribute to others.
Yes, day by days, most people are turning themselves into living robots. Eat, sleep, off to lecture hall, sleep, movies, etc. And I refuse to follow that. Not after reading this.
Thank you for such a wonderful, eyes-opening narrative for me this Monday morning. I’m off to class now! See ya’!
Let’s make mistakes and LEARN!
=)
“…but one thing I’m looking forward in my life is to contribute to others.”
I’m so proud of you, bro. Keep it up!
we never stop learning, and especially so if we keep on challenging ourselves out of comfort
zone
Every day is a challenge if we will it so, yes?
Kenny, I have similar situation with you. Although I’m still doing my degree but planned ahead for Masters in the coming days. But one thing I know is, we learn new things everyday but whatever we learned in classes are never enough for us to face the world. So I am still learning and the end of my education is the day I die.
cheers,
Bosscat
Bosscat, your statement fills me with confidence that the Youth of Today (as a certain celebrity baker likes to put it) is doing fine.
“I fear we may be worth nothing if we don’t move, if we accept everything that is thrown at us, if we regard evil as an unavoidable nuisance in our daily lives that can be tolerated if we ignore it enough.”
I think EVIL is present every day in our politics and our so-called leaders around the world. We must not allow them to rule over us. Keep learning… the Truth is out there!
X-Files? Or just X-termination of X-cruciating X-perts in “What They Think Is Good For Us”?
that’s more X’s in ur sentence than an X-rated film! :p
Well. That might just suggest something, might it not?
I really must say, you can never stop learning, I keep taking classes upon classes most for self-esteem and personal enrichment, but learning various subjects,topics, even hobbies.. I will always have a constant thirst for knowledge. Fantastic Post!!!! Now if education were free… HELLO HARVARD part 2!
“I will always have a constant thirst for knowledge.”
I know you do, dear. I can tell it by each and every one of your posts. That’s what makes you an incredible person.
*hugs*
I can relate to this post.
It’s funny how we talk about education as being something that “prepares us to face our future”, only that the people feeding us this line don’t tell us that we don’t really know how to face our future, until we get there. And when we get there, we become unstuck either way, education or no education. :p
Well, in some sense, we can never really be prepared for our future cos we don’t know what it is. It’s not a paper you can cram all night for. Perhaps it’s just fear of the unknown that propels us to even try.
Maybe we should just welcome the unknown, celebrate uncertainty? (Or am I plain mad here?)
Plain mad.
But mad is good.
So, now I’m plain good too? Like wholemeal bread?
like multigrain bread! ur that good! lol
*groans*
… some more I DO actually like multigrain bread. Aiyoh.
wow, such a long list of credentials. and here i thought you just AWOL’s himbo and sweaty hunk…
what old school ingenieurs???
That’s Hot, Sweaty Hunk (HSS) to you, sir. LOL… In fact, I’m now the Original HSS since she went on to collect a couple more HSSes. The minx.
As for Old School Engineers, oh I don’t know, maybe a certain civil engineer-turned-celebrity baker, hmm?
B-but I’m tired of learning!
At least I’m tired of taking exams. Just wanna learn for the sake of it – tired of doing all the tests, exams and vivas!!
But you’re a doctor, Doc. We, as potential patients, would really appreciate your continued taking of examinations to ensure that you cut the right bits and not remove the wrong, i.e. precious portions of our sacred anatomy.
Ach ja… I remember my dad told me once, “If you have never fallen from a bicycle while practicing how to ride it, you will never become a good bicycle rider.”
My old man just asked me, “How come you got your motorbike licence before you even learned to ride a bicycle?”
P.S. I do know how to ride a bicycle now. LOL
very well written kenny! i used to think like you – that after getting a degree yadda yadda yadda i’d be all set for life. i’d know everything i needed to know to face the world. oh how wrong i was!
so here’s to learning for the rest of our lives, and to have the strength and courage to make mistakes and learn from them!
We were both wrong, but at least we know better now and we are working on learning from that. Good stuff, yes?
If we keep learning, we never grow old! =)
I wish! LOL
SO TRUE. Those street-wise kids out there beats them nerds; facts regurgitating scholars anytime.
“Facts regurgitating scholars”? The image of that in mind is so gruesome it’s entertaining. Hehe.
I believe education is merely a key to unlock a perhaps more convenient path, but it takes a hell lot more of equipment to take on the journey. And along the way, you do a review, take out the redundant and malfunctioned stuff, and figure out which tool helps you better. Sometimes you meet people and you trade.
Nice piece, sir. As always.
I love that thought — meeting people along the way and trading tools and life experiences and knowledge and lessons. Perfect!
Regardless of how much we know, it’s never enough. But that’s OK ‘coz every day, with every new experience, we are offered new opportunities for discovery & growth.
School is always in session & life challenges us to excel at being both enthusiastic student & inspired teacher.
Anyway, I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. As indeed , we all do.
“School is always in session” — I LOVE this!!! It may well be the tagline for my blog I’ve always been waiting for. Can I have this, can I, can I? Pweaseee?
YES, Kenny.. you CAN have it. In fact, I’m very honoured ‘coz with that as your tagline, you’ll be putting me on a pedestal.
Thanks so much!
*lifts jemima up onto a pedestal*
The only time we stopped learning is in the warm embrace of the earth 6ft under. Before that arrives learn, change and be better. A good reminder for me as I am going back for studies that I will not be ever learning but never come close to the reason for learning.
Me, I’m gonna end up in an urn, I bet, or scattered all across the Indian Ocean. But yes, the point is the same: I agree, sir.
Ooh I am one to admit that failing is not necessary a bad thing. It’s always a great learning experience. Painful at times, but never short of a lesson learnt. So hence why now, I’m not afraid of trying, cause you’ll never know what the outcome will be. Good or bad, you’ll never learn what success is, until you’ve tried.
… Yeah!
inspiration is a form of learning for me- when you’re inspired, you’re constantly looking at the world differently, and learning to do so- you may not be inspired in a classroom- if that’s the case, run like hell, you’re wasting time and energy and you truly aren’t learning, like you mentioned.
so giving up on a formal path of education should not matter as long as inspiration doesn’t cease to exist….
if it does, you hop on a plane sir, and get your butt here. we’ll talk.
Hahaha… I feel like hopping up on a plane anyway and talking with ya…
Learning is life long …Its never too old to learn new things and never too old to learn and correct from the mistakes along the way (that’s what I tell myself every morning).
And I should start telling myself that each morning too. Great idea!
U have to wait for a mistake? It brings the whole clan to jump me daily.
An entire clan? Aww.. you are just making me miss my clan in Melaka.
that’s one helluva motivational post, i tell ya.
actually, i can related very much to you post, simply because the similarity in our majors (yeah, the new engineering ones..haha) and the different paths that we want to pursue. (engineering is so boring hor? haha!)
good to realise that we are still very much eager to learn and are not afraid of failing. i say, if it’s time to fail, let it be now before it’s too late.
We should start a new boyband and call ourselves the New Engineers!
The end of education.
For some universities, they call it Graduation (End). For others, Commencement (Start). I prefer the latter, it’s a start of a new journey.
btw, you seem to be missing Ph.D. Getting that soon?
A doctorate? Nah, I don’t think so… I’ve had enough education for one lifetime. Time for some good learnin’ instead.
if… IF only…. you were to get a Ph.D, what field will it be?
Oh, that’s easy. It’d be in the Field of L.O.V.E., of course. What else could it be, me and my Master’s in Mush?
Ah… you wanna be Dr L.O.V.E. :-p
Egads, that’s not what I meant! Sounds so cheesy… Nanti digigit tikus baru tau…
yea, i know what you mean.. street smart vs book smart.. i’d take street smart anytime!
Hehe, at the rate I’m going, I’m more like longkang smart than anything else…
P.S. For the non-Malaysians, ‘longkang‘ means ‘gutter’ in Malay. Heh.
longkang smart? LOL
Straight down to the gutter… where my mind is, naturally. Hehe.
u studied so much already, time for a break! Kit Kat? :p
No, thanks. I’m on a diet.
Must be wonderful to work with someone so inspiring. I’m glad I got a chance to meet this amazing lady.
It is. Keeps me away from drugs, gambling, vice and all things not so nice, she does. Ahem.
If i got unlimited time and resourses,how good, can keep learning wat i want.
Ah but we have, ALL of us, limited time and resources, so I guess that flattens the playing field some what, no?
we just have to keep coming to school here at lifeforbeginners.com =D
Yes, and considered yourself enrolled!
can i sign up too?
By all means, do! All is welcomed and welcomed is all!
the trick to never growing old is to never stop learning. good lesson, sir!
Ah, maybe we can teach Benjamin Button this trick, eh?
Just the message I want to hear. I’m going to start my master degree soon.
Learning is a lifelong process.
Good luck on the master degree!
How true how true!
Words of wisdom from Kenny The Wise.
Honestly, I found myself teary-eyed at the end of this post.
My first mistake/lesson of the day: Never suck up a cockroach using a vacuum cleaner. lol
Omigosh… was the cockroach alive???
“I fear we may be worth nothing if we don’t move, if we accept everything that is thrown at us, if we regard evil as an unavoidable nuisance in our daily lives that can be tolerated if we ignore it enough.”
we must fight against the atrocities that come every day that we read in the newspapers. we cannot ignore it and go our own ways cos it may one day befall us too. thanks for this inspiring reminder, kenny!
For if we do not stand up and defend our rights, one day they may cease being rights. Freedom is a privilege, most of all, and not something to be taken lightly; I’m grateful each day for my freedom.