What Makes The Difference

Sources

I do not even know how best to start writing this because I am boiling with anger. For the whole of today, I have been complaining to everyone that cares to listen about my colleague at work.

In all my years of working, this guy is the worst colleague I ever had to put up with. He is not willing to learn and takes pride in telling you that he cannot handle simple tasks. It's even more annoying that I find myself doing his job.

Worse still, he is a master's degree holder, which goes forth to drive the narrative that education is a scam. But is education really a scam, or are people just daft, dense, and unwilling to put in the work?

Well, to the best of my knowledge, education is the refinement of character and training of the mind to think, so it is expected that as an educated person, especially one at the masters level, you ought to be a step ahead in reasoning.

Not just that, but you also should be able to take up task across every discipline and execute it well because at the masters level it is assumed that you should posses basic knowledge in all ramifications of life.

Quite unfortunately that anyone can be a graduate these days possesing a degree, certificate or even take up academic titles without actually being educated. It's even worse because they get more arrogant in ignorance. Like my colleague, he always assumes he's right even when clearly he has goofed.

Today at a minute his silly mistake backfired and while we deliberated on the matter, he refused to acknowledge his errors and was blaming everyone else. This got me really pissed as we got in a heated argument and then he said since I know so much he's relinquishing the task to me. Seeing how he wasn't ready to rectify his mistakes, our team lead asked me to overlook and just sort it out.

In his mind he has won but for me it's building my knowledge.

You know, people really need to understand that being literate is one thing and being learned is another. One can be literate and still wallow in ignorance. Another can be an illiterate and be very enlightened plus knowledgeable. I'm pretty sure that at a point in one life we've come across a local who has no basic formal education but their actions reflects that of a learned person.

These categories of people know not to cheat, they know not to be greedy, they acknowledged the law and abide by it. They are very diligent in their work and they always know the right thing to do because life has taught them valuable lessons that most certificate/degree holders lack.

Again, whenever we talk about education and learning, the first thing that comes to mind is a formal academic system. We are quick to forget that living is learning and every passing day is a process of improving our existing knowledge.

So at this junction, I am closing this piece by saying, in the grand scheme of things, it's not about one’s academic qualifications but their character and how well it could be improved by the knowledge gained.