Are You Educationally Obese? - Questioning the “postgraduate degree delay tactic”

http://www.servantsasia.org/index.php/news/8-general/421-are-you-educationally-obese-questioning-the-postgraduate-degree-delay-tactic

Wednesday, 04 November 2009 02:08

Our generation is faced with more options than ever before. We grew up being told we have the ability to do anything we choose to turn our hand to. But sociologists are now finding that instead of liberating us, that abundance of choice has virtually paralysed us. The opportunities are limitless, but we also sense the stakes are high. We dare not make a mistake. And so, experts have coined a new term: ‘Option Paralysis’ - the tendency when given unlimited choices, to make none, or to delay making a choice. Ironically, as we drown in a sea of options, one of our favourite ways to decide what to do next, is to choose something that will give us even more options. Our indecision usually leads to staying in school: studying more, and longer. This allows us to delay deciding what to do with our lives. We fear making the wrong choice, so we delay, delay and delay, sometimes well into our 30’s, before venturing out into the world to try our hand at something. At 22 more and more people are choosing to do postgraduate degrees, rather than give their chosen field a try. Older, “wiser” folks assure us it will make us more marketable, more competitive. Sadly, by the time we eventually find ourselves out of school we realise we never wanted to be in that particular field anyway, but our debt forces us into the workforce in a downward spiral that keeps us on the treadmill and beholden to society’s expectations for years – until a mortgage, marriage and white picket fence replace the dreams we had of following Christ in a radical way. In Luke 14, Jesus tells a strangely familiar story. It is the story of an exciting invitation. But those who receive the invitation are preoccupied with other things. So, the invitation bypasses the rich and goes to the poor, the lame and the blind. I believe this is the story of our generation. While we preoccupy ourselves with keeping our options open, delaying our entry into the real world, God is forced to pass us by. The urgency of his Kingdom cannot wait another decade for us to venture out of the safe confines of academia to follow him into the hard places of the world: the darkest and most desperate slums and inner cities where 1 in 6 of the world’s population live. So, in another beautiful picture of his upside-down ways, God uses the poor, the uneducated and the under-equipped to build his kingdom. In China, an 18 year old girl, barely converted a year, begins planting churches – over 100 each year. In India, barefoot evangelists, hardly literate, pedal their bicycles to nearby villages, who speak other languages and are hostile to other tribes, to share the gospel. In Africa, widows, sick with HIV minister to orphans despite their own weariness. Meanwhile, in the West our ivory towers are full to overflowing. We gorge ourselves on learning and academia, becoming theologically and intellectually obese. Stuffing ourselves with knowledge, that will likely never benefit the poor or marginalised. Delaying entering the world because we can’t make up our mind what to do with our lives. My challenge to my own generation is this: rather than offering three more years of your life to indecision. Why not offer three years of your life to service amongst the poor? Then you will be older, more experienced, and have a better sense of who you are and what God is calling you to do. If you need further education at that point, you will be more likely to know what direction you are heading in and will be able to make a wiser choice. [Craig Greenfield is the International Coordinator of Servants. He completed a Masters degree in International Development while living in the slums of Cambodia, after several years of working amongst the urban poor. His book, The Urban Halo, on working with orphans is available from Amazon.]