Education Costs Money

What’s on my mind?

“Education costs money.”

That’s something my dad has said for as long as I can remember.

I don’t know how old I was the first time I heard it, but I know how many times I’ve come back to it. Usually after I’ve made a mistake. Or spent more than I planned. Or taken longer than I thought something should take.

It has become one of those phrases that helps me stop beating myself up long enough to ask a better question.

Did I learn something?

If the answer is yes, then maybe the money wasn’t wasted. Maybe the time wasn’t wasted. Maybe the discomfort wasn’t wasted.

Maybe it was tuition.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately with the new shop.

Progress out there has felt slower than I wanted it to feel. The shop is filling up, which is progress, but it is not yet the work I picture happening in that space. I can see it in my head. I know what I want it to become. I know how much it means to me.

And because it means so much to me, I get self-conscious about spending time there.

That sentence is probably worth reading twice.

I get self-conscious about spending time in a place I love, doing work that matters to me, because part of me still believes progress is supposed to hurt.

At some point in my life, I appear to have learned that if something is fun, it probably does not count as work. If I enjoy it too much, I should probably feel guilty. If I am not suffering, maybe I am not trying hard enough.

I am working through that.

With help from my therapist, Carmen, and with life continuing to put the same lesson in front of me in different ways, I am starting to understand that not all progress has to hurt.

I can grow and have fun at the same time.

That feels obvious when I write it. It does not always feel obvious when I try to live it.

The truth is, my “lack of progress” is mostly a feeling. There is no deadline I am up against. There is no external pressure. No one is standing outside the shop with a clipboard grading me on how fast I turn an old building into the version I see in my head.

The pressure is mine.

And if I am being honest, it is highly likely I would feel this way no matter how much progress I had made. I could be twice as far along and still find the part that is unfinished. I could have the system running and still focus on what needs to be improved.

That is how my brain works if I do not slow it down.

So I am trying to slow it down.

I am trying to look at the extra time and the extra cost differently. Not as failure. Not as proof that I am behind. Not as evidence that I should have known better.

Maybe this is the cost of my education.

Maybe the rent I am paying while I figure it out is tuition.

Maybe the time spent moving things around, changing my mind, learning what works, learning what does not work, and realizing what I would do differently next time is part of the actual work.

That does not mean I get to be careless. It does not mean every mistake is automatically noble. It does not mean every delay is justified because I can slap the word “learning” on it and move on.

But it does mean I can ask the better question.

Did I learn something?

If I did, then I need to use what I learned.

That is where the second phrase has been showing up for me.

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

I have softened on that phrase over the past few years. I do not think it is always completely true. Humans are more complicated than that. We are capable of being thoughtful in one area and careless in another. Brave in one place and afraid in another. Generous with other people and brutal with ourselves.

So I do not believe the phrase as an absolute.

But I do think there is truth in it.

The way we respond when we learn something matters.

The way we handle a mistake matters.

The way we move forward after receiving new information matters.

That has come up for me in small ways recently, and in some larger ways too.

Last week, I received news in another part of my professional life that reminded me how quickly the rules can change when too much of your security depends on one source.

I am not ready, or probably even able, to say much more than that publicly. The details are not really the point anyway.

The point is the lesson.

For a long time, I believed certain things were more settled than they were. I believed there was more protection than there may actually be. I believed I understood the rules of the game well enough to plan around them.

Then the rules changed.

Or maybe what changed most was my understanding of the situation. I thought I had more control and protection than I actually did.

Either way, education costs money.

Sometimes the cost is actual money. Sometimes it is time. Sometimes it is comfort. Sometimes it is the feeling of certainty you had before the lesson arrived.

That might be the most expensive part.

Losing certainty.

But even there, I have a choice.

I can look at the situation and only see what feels unfair, frustrating, or disappointing.

Or I can look at the same situation and ask what it is teaching me.

Did I learn something?

Yes.

I learned that having too much of my family’s security tied to one source carries risk.

I learned that a contract, a plan, or a long-held belief may not provide as much protection as I thought it did.

I learned that the work I am doing with Iowa Worm Farm is not just a fun side project or a creative outlet. It is also part of building a future with more options.

And maybe most importantly, I learned that my response is still mine.

That does not mean I have everything figured out. I do not.

There is still uncertainty. There are still decisions ahead. There are still details to understand and emotions to work through.

But I do not want to confuse uncertainty with hopelessness.

They are not the same thing.

Uncertainty means I do not know exactly what happens next.

Hopelessness would mean I believe nothing good can come from it.

I do not believe that.

In fact, I believe the opposite.

I believe there is something good here if I am willing to look for it. I believe my perception shapes what I see. I can look for the bad, and I will find it. Or I can look for the lesson, and I will find that too.

This does not require pretending everything is fine. It does not require toxic positivity or ignoring reality. Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes lessons are expensive. Sometimes the timing is inconvenient and the cost is higher than we wanted to pay.

But once the lesson is here, what do we do with it?

That is the part I control.

I can keep beating myself up because the shop is not as far along as I think it should be.

Or I can recognize that I am learning how to build something I have never built before.

I can feel embarrassed that I enjoy being there so much.

Or I can allow myself to enjoy the process and stop acting like joy makes the work less legitimate.

I can look at professional uncertainty and only see risk.

Or I can see a reminder to keep building, keep learning, keep diversifying, and keep becoming less dependent on any one thing for my family’s future.

Education costs money.

I think my dad is right about that.

But maybe the cost is not the problem.

Maybe the real problem is paying for the education and then refusing to learn.

So that is where I am this week.

Still learning.

Still building.

Still trying to believe that progress does not have to be painful to be real.

Still trying to remember that joy is not evidence that I am off track.

Sometimes joy is the sign that I am finally getting closer.