Thursday, June 3, 2010

Knowledge Is A Wonderful Thing.

"The only true knowledge in life is knowing you know nothing." - Socrates.

Knowledge. It is something that many of us strive to have. We all attend school to obtain some sort of knowledge; knowledge about the past, knowledge about how the world works. We obtain skills that will help us in the real world; skills that will help us in our careers. Most of will go on to college to gain even more knowledge, only this time we strive to learn more about what we want to learn about, what we want do as a career in the real world. There is more than one kind of knowledge, though. Knowledge from schooling is for an educational purpose. But there are different types. What about common sense or street smarts as many like to call it? This could be considered a kind of knowledge to. This knowledge can help one survive on their own; survive when put in a sticky situation. There is also knowledge that comes from the wise. This kind of knowledge is knowledge about life and the world from someone who has had many life's experiences behind them.

Knowledge is great. Being educated is very important. But, I believe a huge part of knowledge or being educated is knowing exactly what Socrates said, "the only true knowledge in life is knowing you know nothing." If you think about it, this is a fact. This is a true statement because absolutely NOTHING in this life, in this world is certain. Things are constantly changing so even if something is true at one point in time, a few months, years or maybe even decades down the road, it could very well not be true anymore. This applies to educational knowledge and life knowledge. Think about the career you want to pursue. I know that with my career, working in the education system, I learn something new everyday, and the educational policies are CONSTANTLY changing. So things that were once true are no longer true, and I have to change my method of teaching or view to fit the new ways. This could apply to every career; music industry, doctors, etc. And then we get to the life knowledge. Yes, it's true that a person can learn from their experiences, but life is constantly changing and it's surprising. How many times has life throw something at you, and you were like, "Woah. I wasn't expecting that." I guess we call those the curve balls of life. Yes, we get through them. We use our strength and even our knowledge to move on but we didn't have the knowledge to prevent it because we never knew it was coming.

Everything about our lives and our world is constantly changing, and we're lucky if we can stay in the game. There is the saying that says people will fight to make their way to the top but the truth is most of us just fight to keep up. And with all of the changes and unexpected curve balls, we're lucky if we can keep up. So just know this, even with all the knowledge you acquire over your lifetime, you still really don't know anything because you will have to adjust to all of the changes that come with life.

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