Ways of Looking at Education

  Most people tend to associate education with something related to career or advancing forward in life. After all, we spend a lot of money on education, in addition to time and efforts, so we expect some kind of profitable payoff in the form of a tangible career or life plan. But I begin to wonder, is this the true reality of education?
   During my lunch break, I had this reflection: does anybody really know or understand why some kinds of schooling lead to related jobs in that area, whereas others do not? Some might impute this to persistence, while others might think it's karma. Actually, from what I understand of my own schooling process, education is not really so much about landing the perfect job as it is shaping a person's outlook and manifesting a person's spiritual aspirations to reach outward into communities. This statement might sound a bit broad, but I see two aspects to it. The first has to do with opening a person's heart to their own unique ways of connecting to the world. This starts with the natural curiosity that people take toward certain subjects, particularly in their early years at school. The second component seems to relate to the ability to see one's connections with others. I found that tutoring English was one way in which I have been able to share my love of language and writing with other beings, and I think that being able to share one's learning is a crucial part of education.
     Education prepares a person to socialize in ways that they may not otherwise stumble upon, simply by directing us to our inclinations to help and commune in certain ways. Again, there is no end to this process, and there isn't a fixed goal to it either. Even in the event that I take a program in, say, biochemistry, and I land a position in a laboratory after my graduation, there is still a learning process in coming to know who I am in the community of the lab, in addition to bringing into it what I have uniquely learned from my studies in the subject matter areas. While I might be said to 'reach' the goal of working in a laboratory, in fact, the goal itself reaches me first. It's only when I have the opportunity to serve a laboratory that the causes and conditions are ripe for me to enter that space. When such causes and conditions happen not to exist, there is no reason for me to bemoan the state of things or believe that this job is 'who I am'.  One can actually reflect on the kinds of unique skills they are learning in the process of taking courses, thus shifting to a more present-moment orientation to their learning experiences.