An Email Transaction Between My Father and I...On Education, Focus, Hard Work, and Achievement

Dave,

I have heard it said, experience is the jockey; education is the horse.

I am just going back on your letters, reading them again, and bringing them forward...

Dad

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On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 5:43 PM, david bain wrote:

Dad,

To add a little more to what I just said,
egotistically speaking, I would like to show people --
fully educated and not fully educated alike -- with
particular emphasis on my nieces perhaps, that you do
not necessary need the highest of high 'academic'
educations in order to deliver a very good -- or even
great -- piece of work to the world. To be sure it can
help alot but in the end great pieces of work are
based mainly on talent, endless hours of hard work,
and the driving motivation underneath to not stop
until you have fully accomplished -- to the highest
self-standard possible -- what you set out to
accomplish.

Again, you don't need to have a PHD to accomplish what
you want to in life. To be sure, it is great if you
can get it -- and it can help you a lot towards the
goals you want to achieve in life.

But still in the end -- the ultimate creative
dialectic is between ourselves and ourselves, between
'being' and 'becoming' -- between 'striving' and
'accomplishing' -- with or without a full education.
And this we can continue to do until we die.

It doesn't matter if you are a farmer, a fisherman or
a Harvard Phd grad. Talent and hard work is the main
'dialectic combination' that we need to get us to the
top of whereever we want to go...with some good luck,
fortune, and timing along the way...Good luck usually
smiles back at those who work the hardest to create
their own 'luck' and be ready for it when it comes.

'When opportunity knocks, you have to be ready to open the door.
(Somebody said that.) Or conversely, you have to keep knocking until you create your own opportunities. Maybe I've missed my main chances in life in terms of being a well-known and well-respected teacher, writer, philosopher... Or maybe I will still have opportunites and/or achievements yet to come...

I prefer to optimistically believe in
the latter -- just as I believe you can still continue
to re-create yourself as a 'romantic Canadian poet'.


Cheers again...To education, focus, hard work -- and achievement...


dave