For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true in physics and in life. If you want to know whether you’re moving forward look for that reaction. Most of your life is an elaborate facade meant to give the illusion of motion when you are in fact standing still. Of all the reasons to hate student loans, one thing you have to love is this: loans don’t bother with a facade. Your bank account goes down. Your loan balance never does.

Read on to explore what that means.

Let us back up a bit to fully explore my contention. People who make a difference move forward and encounter resistance. Just as a speeding car encounters wind resistance visionaries like King, Obama, Kennedy and Lincoln encounter virulent opposition to their initiatives. Sometimes it costs them their lives but the examples needn’t be as dramatic. It can be as simple as a bright high school or college student who decides not to follow the status quo.

But what of a bright student who DOES follow the status quo? Well, many of them if they are being truly honest with themselves would have to admit they are not learning anything germane to what they want to do with their lives nor are they learning anything essential or even tangentially related to the ever evolving sacred body of knowledge that makes up the foundation of this ethereal concept of an “education.” So what are you doing other than spending money you don’t have?

Again if one is honest with oneself there is the admission that you’re paying for a “title” that makes you ENtitled to certain things like an income that makes it possible to continue with the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed. Hey, maybe that’s been your experience. Luck is far better than enlightenment. But suppose…

Suppose everything about school, assigning class or rank based on how long you’ve been there (freshman, junior, senior) a convuluted credit system, majors…were all artificial marks to give the impression you are working towards something when in fact you are simply going back to the same place with the same people talking about the same stuff? Suppose you are standing still?

Look my point is this: we are all individuals and just as we all reach the peak of our physical height at different points in our maturity so to do we peak at different times intellectually and creatively and rarely do those times coincide with graduation dates. I’m not saying their is no value in a degree, or even little value.  What I am saying is that if you think you are moving and you’re not experiencing a backlash maybe you are not. Maybe you are on a ride at Universal studios. Universal studios is fun, but it’s expensive and gets old after awhile. Plus while you’re pretending to ride a jet others are learning how to fly one.