In my earlier years has a youthful ambitious person, with intent of having a successful life, I never really understood the value of education. My goals were to just establish a 9-5 job, something that my parents failed to do, and a means that always left us poverty stricken. My first ever job, I remember well, I was selling electrical insulation components such has wiring and plug sockets to the electrician trade. I had the nick name of Billy Whiz, because I was always efficient at my job. The money I though was great, something I had never really seen in my life time, amounts per week, that were equivalent to a month of my parents benefits. However, life persists and time went by, and middle age crept up to bite me in the ... I am not unfit for work, but so tired of the manual labour, that is in realisation something a monkey could be trained to do. I then by coincidence stumbled across science forums, after a torrid time on the internet poker scene, arguing on line poker's distribution had faults, looking to find an answer by scientific means. I then developed an interest in science, spending hours looking over the internet, and forum time. This replaced my poker, science was more interesting and a better game of chess in the mind. This is when I considered my education, and realised the lack of it, and considered that if only!, if only I had stayed the school duration and persisted back then in science . You may think to yourself, what brought the post on? The realisation of great men , a little logo that represents education and a smart person, the realisation that this forum is of Virgin, and the realisation of just how smart Mr Branson is.
Theres nothing wrong with manuel labor for millions of people do it everyday. I did it until I retired as a plumber and electrician. Repairing other peoples problems gave me great love for my work for I knew I helped them overcome a problem they couldn't fix themselves. I worked everyday with my hands and felt satisfied when the day was done but many times I was called out during the night as well. So never think any job you have that uses manual labor as being for monkeys only for it is for honest, dependable and hardworking people.
I know there is nothing wrong with manual labour, and it is honest, but when you realise in later life that you have got a brain in your head, and could of done so much more with your life, it becomes a deep regret. Myself was in all the top sets in my school days, and to drop schooling, before I had officially finished, was the dumbest move ever on my part, I should of gone colleague and University and then maybe I just would not have the, if only! feeling, A regret in life.
How do you know this? Since you don't know what your life is going to be in the future you can't predict something that may never happen. You have a brain in your head at every age and you use it daily all through life. I never regret anything because I always learn from my mistakes and will always make mistakes in the future because no one is perfect and everybody makes mistakes. You do know that you can still go to college if you want to. There are many schools online that will give you a degree if you can pass there tests. What is preventing you from going back to school either on a regular campus or online?
"If only"... well... if only monkeys flew out my "But" i coud join the circus Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Its not my recomendation... but i quit school just before the end of the 9th grade to do stoop-work on a cucumber farm... an if i coud do it over an stay in school i woudnt... cause as it is my life is fine an i woudnt roll the dice an risk loosin the way thangs turned out.!!! In any case... dwellin on what cant be changed is a fools errand.!!!
I agree. I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. I have an MBA and I do like to learn (in all areas) but my jobs didn't always reflect my degree and I wasn't always "using my brain" as much as I would like. The internet is great for educating yourself however in any areas that you have interest. Most of my science education is from reading textbooks on my own and other reading on the internet, YouTube videos. Education is an ongoing thing. Go to Goodwill if you are in the U.S. and buy some biology, chemistry, physics textbooks and have fun! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There is no need to have regrets in life. The past is the past. Worry about today Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There are so many things to do in life that we can't possibly do all of them. There are bound to be regrets but you shouldn't let them bother you. You can still learn about science for the rest of your life. And you can still advise young people to make the best of their opportunities.
Great advice, and advice I have looked into before. My problem in later life, is having a family that needs support. In the UK, adult education and a colleague course is not as easy has it sounds to obtain. I do not know about on line courses, and would certainly not be wiling to pay to learn, I could not afford to. I am on Khan academy but do not know if any of that accounts for anything at the end in grade terms. I know it accounts for the knowledge I gain while I am there.
Maybe you should just be content with the actual knowledge then. If you want a degree so that you can change jobs then you will probably have to find a way to pay for it just like everyone else. If the only problem is that you can't or don't want to pay for it then what we are talking about isn't really about regret. I may say that I regret not buying a Porsche when I was younger. If I say that now I realize that I do want one (a Porsche) but I don't want to pay for it then that's not about regret.
I could not afford to pay for the free education I missed whilst I was younger. The regret is not about being rich or poor, but the regret of time lost, time in which if I had completed school, I may of succeeded in a stable career, and may of even been in a position of adding new discovery. I do not regret my children, and see the points of if I had stayed and completed education, then my destined path would of been different to now.
As I stated you can go back to school now if you want to learn something new. Online courses are just as good as any college course because many colleges today offer them at a fraction of the price of going to their actual schools. Just check some out.
I had a desire to live a life without regret. That point is moot. and now I regret having the desire to live a life without regret. (sigh) ......... though rather well educated I chose working with my mind through my hands. Fixing stuff---building stuff--is just about as near to instant gratification as I ever hope to get.(aside from sex- of course) parts of the genetic code for homo-habilis resides deep in my genetic structure Mano...........
I live a life without regret but have no life, and no regrets. It all depends if you want what others want, if you do not, like me, its fine. I know what your saying about regretting not wanting to just live, but thats life. You make your choice. Just glad i have no regrets, and never will. Do not like being a human in this sick world, and glad.
Deriving your (self) worth from a wage job you do is a relatively new and nasty development in the human experience. Implicit assumptions you have made : 1. Degreed people use their brain, learn, discover something new every day. 2. Degreed people do not do routine, boring, soul, brain and body killing tasks to earn their paycheck. 3. Degreed people do something exciting, and important for mankind survival. 4. A degree assures relative financial success. 5. Science, and the production-consumption machine it serves, is the way, the meaning, the purpose and the only hope for us all. All assumptions are wrong. Wage slavery is a nasty thing, degree or not, only larger paycheck is better at soothing the pain of you selling your life and "values" to live another day. Transforming natural world in a commodity and manufacturing easily controlable, pre-programmed workers are the main objectives of science and education. This alone should remove all the mistique from the things you think you have missed.
None of those things are universally true; likewise, none are universally false. (Except for the last one; science is certainly not the "only purpose" for us all. Ask any actor.) A degree is just one tool in a worker's arsenal. Often a useful one, but certainly not the only one. It is as old as society. From the beginning of recorded history we have had (for example) soldiers who derived their self-worth from their prowess on the battlefield.
It is not the value of wage that is important to me, my regret is a wasted mind that I perhaps could of put to better use than wall papering or printing or general other manual type work. Finding science in later life, something that I had never considered, is a challenge to the mind. Although science considers there is not that much left to discover, I consider nothing much has been discovered. I just like science, and wish I had a science job, or some sort of think tank type job. That is my regret, opportunities missed , a job I would of liked for life.
Monkeys could do most peoples work (in my opinion.) This is something that has relatively recently occurred to me. As i go about my daily life i see others working and think, "what skills do they have?" It is not jealousy (certainly not) but rather slight pity (in a way.) It is not a form of arrogance either, but something thst is quite hard to describe. I shall post if i ever find such a description... As for the topic of this thread, "life regrets" i have many, but one haunts me more than any other. I could have had it all: wife and children (what more could you ask for,) but at the time i made the wrong decision. If you must know (and for the sake of the thread) i felt i was being greedy and slightly boastful with a message i had left, so i erased a portion of it in the hope she would conclude it was the only solution. However as the most important part of the message was missing, the encounter appeared to be a failure. I write "appeared" because it was simply that:appearances. Our relationship is successful in many ways, but sometimes i curse eraders (thatll teach me to write in pencil i suppose.) However if she truly is a romantic (as i am,) then i hope she has taken comfort in the fact that the message was delivered, and more importantly it was written! For as you cannot travel back through time unless you have first travelled through time itself, the pencilled words were indeed written, an indentation erasers are helpless to remove. Although i have great regret in removing part of my message it was not because it was not part of the message. It was because of all the possible solutions, i wanted her to have the solution herself. As the message stood originally i dominated every part of the topic. I wrote the message and after lying on the bed fot some time, erased part of it. I hoped she would come to me and highlight the solution (and my mistake) but the missing words were too valuable. Regret.
