If we can self study all the skills we want, we could. Given enough time and patience, we can be a master of any skill that there is. Some skills are needed to achieve a goal. Some skills are used to express ones self. Some skills are used to help others and some skills just for fun.
But for any reason, probably the most important skill for us, is to learn how to quit our job that we don't like to pursue something that we are born to do. That is my decision in learning how to invest in the stock market and creating this blog as a journal. But skills take time to develop.
I recently attended a "free seminar" (I'm into free seminars) for the industry I'm in. And its for an advanced class in the field of programming. The venue, is a TESDA center in Manila. TESDA provides free or even cheap technical education to Filipinos and I think its good education that can be compared to universities. Why not? The instructors at TESDA are part time university professors and one of them is our resource speaker.
But that is not the reason for this post. Inside the TESDA campus are people who have no money for education and trying to learn a skill. But some of them are people who followed the wrong dreams that were though of other people for them and trying to play catch up to pursue the passion they dreamed of as a kid.
One of them was a nurse that I met. He was asking, after our class ended, if he could join since it was free. I said yes and there are no application form or test to do. Just come in and join the class. He said that he has always been passionate about programming but it never took of since he took nursing. He could not find a job as a nurse so he thought to learn the skill that he really wanted as a kid.
But the problem here is that, our class is for the advance people. He, on the other hand, have no clue what a program is. And he said that he was on his way to attend a Microsoft Word class. He doesn't know how to use MS Word? He was I think in his 40's now.
I can't help but feel sad for this guy. Not only that he have wasted his time pursuing things that he did not like, he also don't have any realistic view of how much a skill gets mastered. Programming, like any other art, takes a long time to master. And I think there's a moral lesson here.
How many graduating nurses in our country really do love to be nurses? How many of them have the idea in their mind to go abroad as soon as possible?
If time is needed to gain and practice a skill. Doing the job you don't really like, does make it seem like wasting half of your life doing. Is it worth it? I don't think it is.
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