Here’s what you have to understand whether you get a formal education, or if you choose to get paid to get one in the real world: Your success is on YOUR shoulders. If you’re better than everyone. If you develop your skills and work harder than everyone, you’re going to earn more than everyone. Simple. So if you take this knowledge and work ethic and choose to use your first four years out of high school to learn in the real world, do not expect it to be easy. It won’t be. It’ll be tough, and you may even fail. But you’re going to pick yourself back up and persist. Why? Because you’re a man dammit!
Is a formal education a great thing? Yes, it really is. For one, college is fun, really fun. It’s an amazing experience. You learn a lot in school, and the evidence shows that an education will help you earn more money. But I’m not talking about the average guy who isn’t willing to do more. If you’re willing to hustle, real world experience may serve you, and the rest of society better. And again, there ain’t nothing wrong with going into a field, like construction, where you don’t need an education.
I know more millionaires who started out in construction, who now own their own companies, than I do people who are doctors or lawyers and hang nice degrees on their wall.
Want to Think Like Everyone Else? Get An Education.
The last problem with our education system is the biases that exist, that are then passed on to its students. Most college teachers haven’t worked, at least in the capitalistic sense. They belong to a union, alas, how good they are at what they do doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to their job security. Wait, it sounds like I really don’t like teachers, which isn’t the case. I’ve had some great teachers, and we need great teachers, the problem is that most of them hold a similar worldview, and lack the business sense that will help you thrive in life.
Re: worldview, 70% of American teachers in post-secondary education are “liberal”. I could give a crap if you’re liberal or conservative. Whatever your “politics” are, awesome. Keep them as they are. But if 70% of the educators in America were of the conservative mentality, I’d say we’d have the same problem. In Canada, I’d wager that the figure would be even more eschewed.
The problem with having educators hold the same political views or similar world views, is that it then doesn’t promote original thinking. We need to be fed alternative knowledge to determine what it is that we truly believe. The education system does not automatically promote individual thinking as many would believe. I’ve experienced the bias first-hand. The work place, however, does.
In the business world, what’s already been done won’t always work. In fact, once a company has done something, and done it well, they usually gain a hold on a market. This then forces their competition to think outside the box, to innovate, to solve a problem in a different way. The business world promotes thinking outside of the box, because that’s what works. That’s what makes money.
History is paved, not by men who follow other men blindly, but by those who forge their own path.
Are you unable to forge your own path if you first choose to get an education? Of course not. Many of the world’s greatest innovators learned to innovate in a university setting, but many more learned how to toe the line. If you do go the college route, be aware of what you’re learning and uncover the biases that your instructors hold. I got in many a fight with instructors because their biases, that they’ve held and taught without resistance for decades, were wrong. Would they admit it? Of course not. But they need to be called out on it.
We Need More Men
It isn’t a coincidence that as we see less men going into the labor force, that we see less real men. Less tough, resilient, and self-reliant men. As shop classes are removed from our schools, it’s no wonder that we see more “boys who can shave”. It’s no wonder that we see 30 year old kids, still trying to pay off the debt that they incurred by going to college. If you’re in construction, or any job where you use your hands, or anything remotely resembling “hard labor”, I applaud you.
I know you don’t need my applause, it’s of little consequence, but understand that you are who built this society. So while other people have fancy pieces of paper they can hang on their wall, you know how to put up a damn wall. And when the bridges and buildings start to crumble, maybe even 100 or 200 years from now, long after we’re all gone, it’s the men who built this society that they’re going to come crying to.
