On the importance of catching opportunities

(This is a drunken rant! Read at your own peril!)

I'm 32. All my life in the governmental education prison-facilities, they've told me that the future was rife with opportunities. The older generation was leaving the workplace and leaving behind tons of jobs for the younger generation.

Everything was bright, with sunshine and unicorns, just like the boomers, and within reach. All you had to do was to keep on studying in the concentration camps high school, college and university.

Of course, being a human with a brain and a personality not fully formed, with no experience of the world at all and with the highest standards both for me and the external world, I was full of confidence that the “professionals” were saying the truth. Moreover, I was sure they were professionals and full of competence.

Having reached the age at which my high school and college teachers had when they taught me the crap I’m describing, I now have come to some realizations.

First off, they were full of shit. Maybe it was not their fault. Probably they were just doing exactly what the education system taught them what to do: memorize and regurgitate. Your betters are constantly producing top of the line material, all you have to do is repeat it to your students.

What I’m doing right now was, and still is, very frowned upon in the academic world: put everything in question, ask for sources and judge for yourself.

The truth is, we were lied to, and, to make matters worse, it was all propaganda!
The guys and gals that were my teachers were not much older than I am right now. In fact, they might have been younger than I am right now. Fuck! I’m 32 and I still consider I know so little about everything, I consider I could barely teach to a class of 13-something full of angst, fear and questions about the world! But yet, those teachers taught me all the propaganda on the pamphlets, and then some!

That’s the problem when the authority you look up to also pays you. You have very little incentives to question it.
Lemme open another brewski…. It looks like everything I’m writing is more of a thought diarrhea of long-since kept-up ideas than an actual text. Here is a TL;DR version of what I want to say:

• We were lied to: the future is not bright. As a matter of fact, simple mathematics dictates that our generation (and those that come after) are fewer to support the lifestyle of those that came before us, with fewer souls to do it and fewer opportunities.
• All is not lost, however ! But it will take what the boomers did not need: hard work.
• That being said, forget the education system ! You have the opportunity to become whatever you want and to gain knowledge by simple research on the web. That, dedication and practice.

I’m quite sure I had more in mind, but this will have to do for a first steemit post ! Now is the time for more beer !