https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lifelong-learning-david-geh?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish
People who complain about how much they hate their jobs should actually be thankful that they have one to hate in the first place. June 1st 2015 will go down in history as the day the national carrier MAS terminated all of its 20,000 of their employees and the new brand new company Malaysian Airlines Berhad (MAB) reappoints 14,000 of them leaving 6,000 employees jobless.
I have personally experienced the uncertainty of getting retrenched before. It was back in 2008 and the company I worked with had just announced that they were relocating their HQ to Hong Kong and was going to carry out a VSS exercise which was going to affect around 800 of its employees. I didn’t want to sit around and suffer an uncertain future and decided to resign a few months before the exercise was carried out to further my studies and obtain an MBA. Although it had been my lifelong dream to be a Masters holder since the day I graduated with my degree back in 1999, I have not touched a book for almost ten years and I knew it was going to be an uphill challenge to complete it after hearing horror stories about people paying thousands of dollars for postgraduate qualifications they never ever managed to finish. But nevertheless I was determined. Back then even with an expensive mortgage, car loan, huge credit card debts, mounting bills and high daily living expenses I decided to go at it full-time while slowly figuring out what I could do for money.
With zero regular income, I had to rent out 2 of my rooms in my apartment which brought in around RM650 a month. I sublet another apartment which brought in another RM350 a month in income after paying off the rent to the landlord which brought the grand total to RM1,000 per month. Life was really miserable back then but I persevered. Recently I read an article about a Malaysian billionaire based in Australia who became wealthy despite the odds stacked against him and I agreed with what he said. He said “Education is the only currency you can cash anywhere, no one can steal what’s in your head”.
Eventually I took 2.5 years instead of two years to complete my UK MBA from a local college. During that 2.5 years I managed to survive by going into property as a part-time real estate negotiator. I managed to find a good mentor who was willing to share with me how to go about running the business and in the first month alone I made around RM5k. Subsequent months I made a pretty good income which brought me to the same level of income I made when I was working full-time. The only difference was that it was not compulsory for me to show my face at an office everyday although I was stationed at a property showroom. Life wasn’t a bed of roses even-though sometimes I could make RM10-15k a month. I sometimes worked 12 hours straight from 12am right up to 12pm, 7 days a week. But the effort was well worth it. I managed to spend more time with my loved ones.
Eventually I graduated with my MBA in July 2010 with commendation. In the UK education system that was an equivalent to a second class upper honors degree. I even managed a few As including Finance. Today I work in the education industry and my life is 2-3 times better than when I was working before I came out to study full-time with the objective to change my life for the better. My income today is also 2-3 times better that what I used to make before my post-graduate education. Most importantly, I am currently enjoying what I do every day and one key decision I made at the lowest point of my life had enabled me to do that today.
The point of this article is not to gloat about how I had successfully improved my life. The key point is that, it is not what happens to you but it’s how you react to it that matters. If you find yourself boxed into a corner, don’t give up without a fight. Similarly if you find yourself in a situation you don’t like to be in, like a lousy job with no future, or your company suddenly decides to give you the boot, look at it as a blessing in disguise. Think of it as the universe giving you a pit stop for you to pause, refresh and ponder what will be your next move. Also take it as an opportunity to spend more time with your family or loved ones or improve and upgrade yourself as you embrace your next challenge. I am not religious but I strongly believe that as God closes one door, he opens another. Alexander Graham Bell once said “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Similarly if you find yourself in the darkest place of your life where all hope is lost remember this quote by Will Rogers, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!”
Education indeed is a way out for many people. History has proven that. Just ask any successful person and they will tell you that. I am saying this not because I work in the education industry. Any self-made millionaire or billionaire will tell you that even though they never had very much education to begin with. But almost all of them see the value of it. It doesn’t mean you need to go sign up for an MBA. Any type of education will help if you have the desire to improve your life. It can be in the form of formal (classroom) and informal learning (self-directed learning). Learning a new language, learning a new skill, reading books, attending seminars and workshops and learning from a mentor or learning something new from the web all constitutes giving yourself an education. Google this term ‘Lifelong Learning’ to understand it’s meaning. In Wikipedia it is defined as ‘ongoing, voluntary and self-motivated’ pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. Therefore it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development but also self-sustainability. Whether brick-and-mortar institutions or on-line schools, there is a great economic impact worldwide from learning, including lifelong learning, for all age groups. The lifelong learners, including persons with academic or professional credentials, tend to find higher-paying occupations, leaving monetary, cultural, and entrepreneurial impressions on communities.
