Usable Skills

I’ve written previously about the value of philosophy and how it taught me usable skills–almost all of them made this list by Harvard University about what defines an “educated person.”

1. The ability to define problems without a guide.
2. The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
3. The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.
4. The ability to work in teams without guidance.
5. The ability to work absolutely alone.
6. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.
7. The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns.
8. The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application.
9. The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically.
10. The ability to attack problems heuristically.

Match those against what the public education system teaches.

(see here for more lists of “usable skills”)

Mid-quarter life crisis

In 2005 I suffered a crisis. I was 21, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but the world was asking me to choose.

The heaviest battles were being waged sub-consciously but I was acutely aware that I was at one of the most important inflection points of my life.

I had just discovered that the 30-odd units of business-related courses I had successfully completed (economics, marketing, accounting, personal finance, etc.) were not going to matriculate. All that work, all of those uncomfortable head-to-desk naps, even that macro-economics course I had to retake because of the naps, was a total waste of time.

Try and image the situation. I had spent two years in community college. My path to future  financial independence and upward social mobility had been carefully plotted. Now it was falling apart. My college guidance counselor–the one who twelve months earlier assured me that I was well on my way to successfully transferring as a business major to a larger 4-year school nearby–was looking at me confused. ‘That can’t be right,” she said.

She looked again at the computer screen. “Wait, you are right…hmm.”

“That’s sooo odd,” she said.

Odd? What’s odd is I trusted this person to help me plan not just my education but my entire future! She told me that she had made a mistake, that she was sorry. I told her that the mistake was mine, that I was sorry I had listened to her. I never should have relied on someone else to handle something so important.

I would transfer to Cal-State University that year, but not as a business major. I took a hard look at life after that experience. I did a spiritual gut check and I made a new priority list. It involved a switch to the study of philosophy.

I knew intuitively, and from experience, that the business education I would receive would make me very efficient at a lot of things…but hardly effective. Peter Drucker explained the difference like this:

Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.

I wanted to know what the right things were. And from what I saw happening in my country (specifically war) no one really knew what the right things were. They just knew how to do a lot of stupid things very efficiently.

Looking back it seems strange but nobody had ever asked me (and I had never really asked myself) what I hoped to gain from a college education.

It’s a pretty important question.

I declared philosophy as my major that fall. Business was practical. I could use that knowledge. I could use it to make money. But what the hell would I spend it on?

Philosophy helped me sort that out. It taught me that questions are usually more important than answers (effectiveness over efficiency). I learned about ethics and how cultivate virtues. It taught me critical thinking, self-awareness, and compassion. These were usable skills, skills I wasn’t being taught in business school.

Seven years later I’m still fighting chaos and wrestling with tough decisions. These things I fear, never really go away. But I am happy that what’s-her-name committed that unforgivable but lucky-for-me mistake. I reexamined my life, realized I was settling for an education I didn’t want, and made the choice to live differently, reflectively…extraordinarily.