Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Life is full of bad experiences. There is always something that can be learned in each experience. The bad experience is a form of tuition. The learning is a form of education. Nothing guarantees we get the education with the tuition. The education, however, is there for our choosing.

College is pretty simple: you pay the tuition and get an education. Well, maybe it is simple in in principle, but I don’t know how often it really happens. The favorite saying of one professor I knew was

Education is the one thing people are willing to pay for and not get.

He would tell us that in class and when someone disagreed, the professor would reply, “if I said class dismissed now, half an hour early, how many of you would protest with, ‘No, I paid for a full hour of your time and I want it.'” Case closed.

Life is not as simple as college was (if anyone out there reading this is in college now, sorry to disappoint you). Tuition is not usually paid in money; it is paid in pain, frustration, angst, and several other not-so-much-fun words. Education is what is available for learning. Sometimes it isn’t easy to find. Sometimes the pain of the tuition blocks the learning that is available.

For example, the week before Christmas, we spent the night in a gas station parking lot in a snowstorm. All went well as we reached our destination safely. The delays, worries, and fatigue were the tuition.

Education? Did I learn anything? Yes. Never hit the road in the snow without a full tank of gas. Bring a snow shovel with you. Have your cell phone charger with you (the one that works in the car). Bring food and drink with you. Big education (the things that I didn’t do): leave at a better time to to avoid the snow and make several motel reservations along the route in case you need them.

Another example: saying something in jest that got me in trouble. I won’t cite the specifics of any of the cases, but this has happened to me at least a dozen times. The trouble was the tuition. The education? Watch out when you have the urge to say something that you think is funny. I finally absorbed the education about the 10th or 11th time I paid the tuition.

A computer programming example: making a backup of source code before changing it. The tuition? Finding myself with changed software that didn’t do anything and not being able to return to a working version. Wow, that was painful. The education? Always make a copy of the working software so you can go back to it. The first several times I paid this tuition, I didn’t get the education. The education finally stuck.

Something hurts? Something embarrassing? Feel a burning sensation? That is the tuition. There is an education out there somewhere. Try to see through the pain, find the education, and get it.