I have misplaced my motivation to learn and be responsible. Again.
This past month alone, I have grumbled over how little I seemed to care and how unnecessary I viewed topics like the origins of cricket and the dates of English monarchs. I complained of how little time I seemed to have to accomplish all the work I have while trying to satisfy all of the other college details like: work experience, finding financial provisions, being healthy, maintaining relationships, etc.
I have treated education as a burden. Again.
I hate felt personally victimized by papers with the misinterpreted intent of allowing me to find information. I have felt harassed by tests whose sole intent was measuring how much I have learned and how much effort I have put into my academics. I have felt betrayed by the very work designed to aid my quest of accomplishing knowledge of topics I will need in the future.
What I failed to remember is that education is not a burden, but a privilege, an opportunity for a fulfilling future, and an aid to my postgraduate career. By treating my education as such I have lost sight of these benefits and goals. As my roommate Lacie said, it’s like a person complaining about how heavy gold is instead of appreciating its value.
An educator is not a villain whose occupational goal is to burden us. An educator is just that: a teacher whose goal is to bless us with the gift of knowledge in their credited fields, to show us and guide us in how to understand and utilize to the best of our abilities our mental skills. Any “educator” who sadistically gives out assignments without the intent to better us mentally has lost sight of their goals. A person who gives too much work with purposes of adding difficulty to their students’ lives, of merely satisfying the expectations held of them by their superiors, or of satisfying whatever feelings of bitterness and under-appreciation they have, has unfortunately surrendered themselves to the enemies of education: cynicism, ignorance, meaningless laws and empty virtue. Fortunately, I haven’t had any of these at Corban.
Education is not a burden. It is a gift, a way to worship our Creator. It is a way to explore the depths of humanity, the complex nature of what our Lord has created, and the streets of knowledge that may sometimes be overlooked because of the eyes fixed merely in the distance of ambiguity deceptively defined by the onlooker.
As I reflect on my unfortunate handle of this gift, privilege and method of worship known as “education,” I am reminded of what it means to be a student and a hard worker.
I love sleep and having fun, but I love the Lord more. And if my grandpa can wake up at 5:30 in the morning and sacrifice some of his retirement years so his children and grandchildren can have a more enjoyable future, I can sacrifice an hour or two of sleep to finish one of my 7-10 page papers.
I haven’t exactly found my motivation, but I might be able to find it on the road to God’s will, or underneath the table of potential my grandfather sees in me that I’ll never understand.