Sunday Adelaja once said that “There is always a great price to pay for irresponsibility”. This accords the saying that, “a prostitute will always cry for a child when she grows older”. This statement is relevant or true in our lives especially when it comes to matters pertaining to our day to day life. In most cases we fail to understand what we need or supposed to do at the right moment. We find ourselves doing other things which are not crucial, important and necessary in our lives. As the result, when difficulties and challenges of life come we begin to cry like a prostitute.
Take an example of people who are in academic arena or endeavor and who do not take hold of what is demanded at the right time and the right milieu. That is, if they do not bother themselves to acquire what they are supposed to achieve and take advantage of it in the future. From experience, we are told that, ‘You will never know how much you miss something until you lose it’. When we are unable to find it, it is the moment that we come to realize that the very thing which we did not struggle to get at that particular moment was very essential in our lives. It is also true that we do not know what we have been missing until it arrives or it comes to happen and reveal itself in our lives. This is true because at the moment of schooling people do not realize what they really miss until when a thing unveils itself in the course of life.
These people (the irresponsible scholars) in the academic arena in the future may cry for certain knowledge which is demanded by the nature of their professions. When it happens so, they weep and shed tears for not having what they were supposed to have at their fingertips. For instance, we expect the one in secondary school or university to be well equipped with the subjects or courses in question. Well and good he or she may be well equipped with such kind of knowledge, but now comes whether this particular person is able to communicate such knowledge to others in a required manner, such as by using the scholarly way or academic language which is understood by people of different kinds. If he/ she fails to do so what he/ she is expected of his/her professional, probably; because during his/her time of learning he/she did not bother himself/herself to acquire such knowledge.
Therefore, he/she ignored such kind of essential knowledge and language which is the tool to deliver the material obtained in the field of intellectual feeding. In this Kofi Annan unveils the importance of such knowledge by saying that; “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family”. This corresponds with the thinking of Sir Francis Bacon who reminds all the scholars that, “Knowledge is power”. Why knowledge is power? This is due to the fact that, knowledge helps them to find the way to solve a variety of issues in in their lives as well it shapes and colors their personality and perfect their behavior and dealings with the other people. Whereas, power is the ability to do something, in this through knowledge they are able to perform and fulfill certain tasks and duties demanded in the society by extension to the whole world.
This is closely similar to that of a prostitute, who when she was engaging in prostitution; she did not think and wish to have a child or children at the very time. When she becomes older, it is when she comes to her senses that, oh I am supposed to have children (sons and daughters). That is, there is a need of having a child. This is quite similar to a person in school whom might not see, understand, apprehend and view what will happen in the future when he/she goes to the field of work.
Certain knowledge provided by lecturers, teachers or guardians may not sound as useful when a person is in the field of learning. Although, when it comes to the process of performance such knowledge becomes crucial and demanding to be used to solve problem encountered in the areas of work. It is here then, a person when fails to defend his professional begins to cry like a prostitute who did not value the importance of having children while still young. For him/her, when in the process of learning he/she did not struggle to get “children” (i.e. knowledge and other required trainings for his work in the future).
He/she finds himself/herself having half cooked knowledge which is very dangerous at the time of performing his/her duties and other assigned tasks. In this, Thomas Henry Huxley comes in with a delightful discernment, “if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?” Therefore, we should keep in mind that there is no devoid knowledge; every knowledge we get in learning arenas is very essential and practical in our life. It is in this way Sunday Adelaja acclaims:
“Illiteracy is the number one promoter of ignorance. God does not have any business with irresponsible people. When we neglect knowledge, we have indirectly rejected light. It is only those that live intentionally that can accomplish and come to the significance meant for them. Make sure you are standing for something you believe in. The devil will do anything for you to be comfortable in your ignorance. Remember that, there is a price for everything in life. Even what you receive freely has already been paid for by someone. Greatness is a product of time.”
Therefore, knowledge we acquire in school or college is very important for our life. And again, time is true teller of disappointment, frustration, depression, and low self-esteem that a person will be incurring due to lack of certain knowledge of which is of his/her career. The words of B. K. S. Iyengar intersect with the preceding thought, when he asserted that, “lack of knowledge is the source of all pains and sorrows whether dormant, attenuate, interrupted or fully active”.
Dear young men and women, we are in the world of competition and competence of what we have. It is in that manner we are supposed and demanded to think globally and not to narrow our understanding. To think as our contemporary demands us to do so while bearing in mind that we are to act locally, to act according to the supreme principle of morality which allows us to excel in all our dealings. Unless we do that, our lives will be full of spiral of problems, restricted access to our needs and other necessary demands. If such situation occurs, a person becomes disappointed, embarrassed, disgraced, depressed, fractured and frustrated in life. This kind of situation makes a person cry and grieve for that very knowledge missed, which on the part of a prostitute is a child.
Furthermore, we should not jeopardize the time we get to acquire knowledge and opportunities we get in life. Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere once said that “it is possible play your part.” This was the way to motivate people to be responsible towards their duties. If we jeopardize our time to obtain knowledge the world will flabbergast us, in our ministry, professional, as well as our lives in totality. And this will make us perish and fail to tackle the contemporary world’s challenges. Thus, we must hold what Ludwig Mies van der Rohe commented on issue of learning that: “Education must lead us from the irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgment. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order. Therefore, let us guide our students over the road of discipline from materials, through function, to creative work”.
In a nut shell, we must spend most of our mature lives trying to prove that we are not irresponsible. The time and opportunity of learning should be of great importance in our lives. In the same line, Candice swanepoel eloquently said that, “A lack of knowledge creates fear. Seeking knowledge creates courage”. Therefore, nothing we should take for granted, for everything we come across is essential and fundamental for our formation: whether in the human formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation, or pastoral formation. This is due to the fact that, “the world today is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats” as conveyed by P. J. O'Rourke. If we do not want to cry in the future, let us play our party not only in academic arenas but in all aspects of human life so that we become well integrated and be in the position to solve the challenges we face in our contemporary world.