Education is the ultimate investment
Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay
There is a saying that gold, land and art are the three safest types of investments there is. They will stand the test of time. If you go into a time machine and jump backwards or forwards to an arbitrary point in time, you would still be able to trade with these commodities. Money is another story. A normal salary would be a fortune a hundred years ago, but a hundred years into the future it might not be enough to even buy groceries. However, I believe there is another kind of investment that is above even gold, land and art. It is the safest kind of investment that exists: Education.
Using your money to improve and educate yourself is the safest investment you can ever make. Because the knowledge within you, can never be taken away from you. It is eternal. No collapsing economy, stock market crash or housing bubble can touch it. No corrupt government or criminals can steal it. Not even you yourself can lose it even if you try! And the more you share it with others, the more of it you will have and the more valuable it becomes. There are not many things that we can claim to have these properties. Knowledge is in another dimension. It cannot be destroyed. You cannot pay the rent with knowledge, but we can use knowledge to create value that then can be traded for money. And there is no better way of educating yourself than to educate others, thereby providing them with the ultimate investment.
I have always known this to be true. That is probably why I have gravitated towards the role as a teacher. To work as a teacher and empowering others is among the most satisfying and enjoyable activities I can think of. It is also one of the scariest, because when I am standing in front of my class, I wield immense power! If education is the ultimate investment, then teaching truly is the ultimate responsibility. A teacher changes the lives of people. They can present a topic in a new light and spark passion in a student that previously found the topic so uninteresting that they would rather watch paint dry. Earlier in my career, I could lie almost sleepless the night before a lecture. I am an extrovert and has never been afraid to stand in front of a crowd. But I was truly terrified about what damage I could incur if I do a bad job. What if I say something that will make a potential and promising engineer shy away from something that they otherwise would have truly enjoyed? What if I accidentally extinguish passion? I still find this risk terrifying, but I have gained experience and learned how to deal with it. The risk is without the shadow of a doubt, worth the reward.
I currently do not work full time as a teacher, only 20 %. I believe that I can provide the best education if I have a solid foundation in the practice of my domain in the private sector. You know how the saying goes – Practice what you preach. I take that literally. One of, or perhaps THE most critical knowledge gained from my practice is experience of specific projects. I can tell personal stories about my topic. That makes it real. You have to capture the audience emotionally first, and there is no better way of doing that than with a story. I consider stories to be more real than reality itself and thus, a good story can compress unbelievable amounts of information in very few words. A teacher who is also a good storyteller is therefore a perfect combination.
When developing a skill, it takes very little time and energy to go from nothing to something. The better you become at something, the more time and energy you need to invest to increase your knowledge further. It is the same thing as with air resistance at 10 km/h compared to 300 km/h. It increases exponentially. I have always enjoyed teaching at the lowest level, at introductory courses. That is where you witness the greatest improvement in the shortest amount of time. By the way, that is something that resonates perfectly with my conviction on daily incremental improvements! It is very satisfying to throw small stones in the water and watch the ripples of knowledge spread all over the world.
We are all connected.