Education and Responsibility

One of the greatest principles I have come across recently, which should be an obvious thought, but it is helpful to have it stated out loud, is that wisdom without action is not very helpful at all. That is how I paraphrase it.

So it behooves each person to learn to act. This can be quite a hard thing, because you might need to act by pulling a transmission from a car. Or, you might need to act by writing an article about something. You might need to write some code, or estimate a project, or build a chicken coup, etc. The variations and potential for performing some act seem limitless. But that's the whole point, our wisdom and knowledge, or our education, should truly lead us to positive action.

With that said, I came across this passage in a book by Ron Paul, about education, liberty, and responsibility:

If we do not begin with the principle of education that insists that education for liberty is education for personal responsibility, the system of education will not lead to an expansion of liberty, but rather, to its contraction. The School Revolution, Ron Paul

I think I find in this a similar principle to what I have already been thinking about. We could interchange the word "responsibility" with "action." So, educating or gaining wisdom for greater freedom is the same education or wisdom that leads us to action. Hopefully the actions we take are the proper calculated steps which will provided greater freedom, and leave us with a greater amount of available options.

While I'm at it, here is a couple other interesting quotes from the same book:

Liberty is inescapably associated with responsibility.

...as individuals mature, they must accept greater personal responsibility for their actions. Education or liberty must be geared to persuading people to take greater responsibility in their own lives.

Keeping those principles in mind, here is an interesting situation to consider. Say you are driving down the road one day in your paid off vehicle. That vehicle then begins to make some atrocious noise, and you fear that something in the driveline has gone awry. You then find the first mechanic shop that you can find, and they quote you something like $4000 for the fix. You don't have that amount of cash off-hand. You find yourself "stuck."

It first appears that your choice of driving an older and paid off vehicle has severely limited your freedoms. But has it? What options are available? You cannot afford to pay the shop, so you are stuck, right?

Well, by taking some additional responsibility for the fix, there is a few things you might consider:

• Attempt your own diagnoses. You might find that the problem is something you could fix yourself.
• Or, if that fails, talk to people within your circle of friends and family who might have an idea about what happened, or what you could try next.
• Next, you could try contacting people who may have started their own businesses that specifically work on those parts that you have been told are bad, and see what opinions or ideas they have.
• Start saving money, and create a plan to fix the broken vehicle.

And the list might go on with a myriad of other ideas. But that is the point, when in the face of fear and danger, take a deep breath, and apply the wisdom you have gained to the situation. This might happen to any number of things in your life. But if you take the responsibility, you might find that there is many more options available than the initial and "obvious" choice.

I have also found this to be the case in the web hosting world. Nowadays, the big players like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, those are the places where companies often default to for their web hosting and "cloud" needs. Why? Because they are the name-brand options! Right?! But many companies find that their pricing structures are unsustainable. If those companies were to take a step back, take a deep breath, and say, "what are my options? What else should I know about? Who is offering alternate but competitive solutions?" -- then they will surely find at least a dozen options that are affordable and work well for their situation.

In the mean time, don't forget to take a positive and faith filled action in your life, based on the good things that you are learning.

Valete

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