Something that inspires me is learning. Knowledge is power as they say, and the more knowledge that I have the more possibilities there are to realize.
If someone only knew that the earth was flat, they would never be inspired to sail or fly around the world. If someone only knew how to turn a computer on, they would not be exposed to the limitless possibilities that exist on the cyber frontier. If someone did not know that it was possible to grow your own garden, they would never be inspired to learn how to grow their own food supply.
Learning is something that I believe most people take for granted. As kids, most of us were forced into public education and were never really were made to understand what we were learning was important. Also, everyone was expected to learn in the same way. I believe, public education has served to fail our children in this respect.
For me to learn I have to attach the concepts to a visual image. I am currently taking a class in Business Intelligence, which requires us to learn how Multidimensional modeling works for databases. If someone just explained this to me out of the box, my brain would never really fully comprehend it. However, in the book I am reading, “Delivering Business Intelligence”, they provide some amazing visual examples which I totally embrace.
When I recently got into my job as an Information Security Analyst, there is no shortage of subjects to tackle. Learning how to hack computer systems or websites is no small feat. A computer system can have many different operating systems and running many different types of application services. The explosion of the web opens up a whole world in of itself to learn from web services to programming languages. To this end, I believe that Information Security professionals must be the some of the brightest people in the Information Technology world to be successful. This is something I aspire to be and it will take a lot of work.
Tonight, I just finished up my homework for the week. Already, I am thinking of how I can apply these new concepts to my everyday life. The more I know, the more value that I can provide back to others.
I have always wondered what it is that drives people to teach. Now that I am getting older, I am beginning to understand that teaching in of itself, inspires others. Once people learn more about the possibilities available to them, their potential grows. On the occasion that I have had the opportunity to teach others, I feel like I am empowering others to be better.
Image Credit: Mark Brannan