Self-education and Taxes

My day emphasized the topic I’d already intended for the blog to this week: educating yourself. First of all, its tax season (and only accountants are going YIPPEE!). We farm so it gets a little hairy. And we don’t always have the best comprehension.

So why, you are asking yourself, is this chick talking about taxes when she said this was about education? Answer: in order to explain why educating yourself is so important.

But, in order to do that, I’m going to give a little background about myself.

From the fifth grade, I was homeschooled. Not for religious reasons or anything, but because I was a motivated, driven student who wasn’t challenged. (They should have taught us tax laws between naptime and lunch… grumble, grumble.)

Anyway, I learned about educating myself, not because I had to, because I wanted to. I spent hours pouring over encyclopedias, drinking in new information.

Flash forward and you find a blonde girl at college who is absolutely astounded that other students don’t crave knowledge like that. While I’m not a complete nerd, I do have my less-than-cool tendencies, like going on and on… and on… about this or that author who did xyz in whatever century. Not many people in my life care. But I do. The process of learning is good for me.

Getting back to income taxes, I’ve had to seek out a great deal of information, from people and places, in order to help this year. It may not be fun or pleasurable (and sometimes down right painful), but necessary. And this becomes another lesson: educating yourself is a lifelong commitment that shouldn’t end until you’re dead. Because, I think, when you quit learning, exploring, and being curious, life isn’t much fun, no matter how much is left.