All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life. – Deng Ming Dao, 365 Tao
We can only depend on what we learn in a classroom or what others dictate to us so much. There comes a time when we must sharpen the blade acquired in the classroom on the metal of experience.
Louis L’Amour, one of the great autodidacts of our time, said all education is self-education, He was right. Some utilize the resources of a college or university. Some educate themselves. Neither way is better than the other. We must decide what is best for us.
Does someone who goes to college and spends four years studying for tests and binge drinking do himself any good? Of course not. On the other hand, someone who goes and utilizes the resources offered by his school, who thinks and questions and does more than take notes and pass tests, now there is someone who had done himself – and by extension his fellow humans – some good.
Similarly, someone who educates himself by spending his time merely punching a clock and being entertained isn’t doing himself any good, either. He is wasting the opportunities nature and circumstance put in front of him.
The true experience is living your own life…
There is no substitute for jumping off the sideline and getting in the game. If we are going to have a satisfying life we must make our time serve us. Every one of us was born with specific talents and ambitions and we are not doing anyone any good by ignoring them.
The only commodity every one of us is issued in equal measure is time: we all have 24-hours every day. The hours can either be friend or foe, too. We can do battle with them or we can put them to work for us, but those 24 hours are there every day. What we get out of our lives, whether we do well or squander or precious existence, is dependent on the work we put into those 24 hours.
We must live the lives we were meant to live. All of us must test what we’ve learned and make our own references.
