When the Levee Breaks

The universe if a funny beast.

I'll skip all the boring details and get to the point.  The last 6 months for me have been introspective.  I've been praying a lot and asking God, "Where are you directing me?"  You know, it's hard to discern His voice from all the others chattering in my head. 

Well, this wasn't a lightning strike; and the ah-ha was more gradual, like water slowly seeping into a sponge.  You see, over the years, I've often thought to myself, "I wish someone had told me I could do or be anything when I was younger; or let me know I could take the road less traveled".  Then maybe I wouldn't be working in Corporate America feeling like everyday was Ground Hog's Day.  And that's when it hit me, or more accurately, crept up on me.  I can be that person.  I can tell kids, "You should be an artist or a lion tamer or an astronaut!" 

Then this morning while getting coffee, a friend at work tells me her younger brother is taking a break from college.  He's going to spend the next 6 months with their family in Venezuela.  In school, he was studying engineering, but she believes his heart is in dance.  He is just afraid of disappointing his parents.  This was affirmation. 

Today, there is a deparate need to break the cycle of go to college to get a job that pays lots of money but side note you'll hate it because that's just what you're supposed to do.  And guess what, that college degree you worked so hard for, ya everyone has one, so now you need your Masters, maybe even a PhD.  All that to work for a corporation that provides on the job training that anyone with a little common sense could do.  By the way, you took out student loans for all this right?

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not against higher education.  What I am against is our industrialized, institutional way of teaching, our mass production of thought, and the complete disregard of the individual and their unique abilities. 

To paraphrase Sir Ken Robinson, "our educational system needs a revolution not a reform".  Education should be personal, exciting, and fun no matter what stage of life you're in.  We as parents should encourage our child's interests.  If you do what you love, everything else will fall into place.  Success, money, quality of life.

Please let's not put another bandaid on the leak in the damn.  Eventually, it will break. 

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.

– Ancient Indian Proverb