“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
An education is powerful. Most problems in this world can be fixed with access to a balanced education. Whether it be pulling a culture out of grinding poverty or even convincing a nation of people to pursue a more progressive culture, education has the ability to change someones opportunities and what could be referred to as fate. It achieves this through stimulating the imagination and develops an idea of what could be.
To provide an insight into a life full of dreams becoming reality. Why do we continually see people from developing nations come to first world nations? It’s to access education and opportunity for themselves and their families in the hope of providing better opportunities for the unborn generations after them. People die trying to grasp the opportunity to better themselves. So what are you doing to better yourself? What are you prepared to sacrifice?
The education system is ran at state level and outcomes generally vary. Ask any parent that has had to move their children interstate and start them in a different school. The differences are significant. And don’t even try to even breach the subject of a standardised national education system with any bureaucrat from an education board. You’ll be liable for the autistic screeching that will no doubt ensue. Differences between the states aside, lets talk about education after school.
Your education doesn’t stop
For a great number of men, they have progressed with varying levels of success through secondary school and entered the work force in some capacity. Some, but not as many ten years ago, progress on to a tertiary education in a University with the hope of gaining a higher paying form of employment in some specialist field. For a great number of young men that enter the work force, the dreary and at times pointless time spent listening to teachers is forgotten about as they start developing the skills required to operate safely and productively in their chosen employment.
Little did they know that the time spent sitting in a class room was actually preparing them for this moment in their life. The seemingly meaningless lessons on information that ‘couldn’t possibly help outside of school’ was in fact teaching a valuable skill known as problem solving.
It’s really all about your attitude
Skills, knowledge and attitude are the traits required of men. The most important being attitude. Skills can be trained and knowledge given, but attitude trumps all. A man in any profession that has a poor attitude will not last long. Their work colleagues will grow tired of them and their employer will eventually decide their not worth keeping regardless of their skills or knowledge. Attitude over rides everything. It is the driving factor within any group as to an individuals worth and character. ‘Does he have a good attitude?’ is often the question an employer asks when considering terminating or hiring an employee.
As men that want to advance in life and pursue a better and more bountiful life, what’s your attitude towards education? Do you think it’s not for you or do you think there’s nothing else you could learn? To put it simply, if you’re not pursuing additional education in order to better yourself, you’re intellectually lazy and letting yourself and the people that care about you down. Men of value within their community are constantly learning and absorbing new information. They pursue new skills and knowledge constantly. They challenge themselves to read, learn and think about things that challenge their biases or positions on controversial subjects.
Good men actively pursue education
This isn’t so they can win arguments and be that guy that tries to intellectually tower over everyone at a dinner party. It’s so they can develop informed opinions and justify why they think or feel the way they do about a particular issue with reason and conviction.
This active pursuit of education that valued men have doesn’t come in the form of lectures, text books and class rooms. It comes in the form of making reading and learning a habitual practice in their daily routine. Whether it be before bed, as soon as they wake up or a means to relax, successful men all read and actively learn. For entertainment or knowledge it is the one trait that connects the most successful men in your community. Don’t have the time? Make time. Even if it’s only 20 minutes a day. Being able to sit and read for an extended period of time takes practice. Most academics can only read for a couple of hours before they’re done. So you’ll need to practice it. It also leads into the question of what you should be reading.
Start reading about things that matter
Human history is full of amazing stories of hardship, tragedy and success. Go to your local library and become a member. It won’t cost you a cent but will give you access to a phenomenal amount of information. Find the history or biography section and start reading about inspirational men that overcame significant struggle. War, Arctic Exploration, personal tragedy, business and natural disasters. Truly inspirational stories of human endurance await you to strive towards either replicating in your own way or using to compare and rationalise your own troubles. There are men that struggled for something bigger and everlasting than their own lives.
The men that have come before us and endured or survived to tell the tale is truly amazing. You can draw inspiration and motivation from these stories and apply them to your own life. It will help you compare your own struggles to someone that potentially endured to the point of near death and defeat only to snatch victory or life from the jaws of fate. These stories are a map for men to follow in modern society. Forget the social politics of if they were ‘good men’ by the standards of today. Chances are they were misogynist chauvinists, but that’s not why we should learn from them. We should learn from them because within the snap shot that were their lives, they made a difference. And you can to.
Don’t have time to read? Podcasts is the answer
Additionally to reading every man should have a mix of podcasts they can listen to when exercising or travelling to and from work. Turn off the mindless FM radio that consists of two idiots and some chick that laughs a lot. Start listening to conversations between people that stimulate your imagination to what you can achieve. A simple podcast application on your phone like ‘Podcast Guru’ will open you up to whatever community you’re interested in.
Stuck for ideas on what you might be interested in? Just start with the ‘Joe Rogan Podcast’. With 11 million listeners he must be doing something right. With a new episode almost daily and a complete mixed bag of guests ranging from convicted criminals to astrophysicists that are able to explain in simple terms how time and space works, you’ll suddenly start learning about subjects you didn’t know existed.
Get started today
In summary, if you want to broaden your horizons and start your journey to bettering yourself, start educating yourself. No one else is going to be as invested in your personal growth as you should be. Go to a library in your local area and pick up a bag of books. Start small, but at least start. Even if all you can manage is an audio book, start consuming information that feeds and exercises your brain. Remember that the common trait that the most successful men in the world is that they read.
Go!