The apprentice school….

I had started an apprentice school about a year ago……

With the help of a pair of ‘hindsight glasses’, I have learnt so much from the entire experience –perhaps more than the apprentices themselves because I have the advantage of the aerial view.

The initial few months were like a river bursting out of its winter store from its origin, thundering down steep cliffs into white water rapids. With loads of adrenalin rush, everyone was on a mad rush to complete and compete. The motivation level was extremely high partly because of novelty.

About 4 months in, everyone begins to form his or her own tributaries that meander down the valley into the plains. The  typography has changed, the pace has changed and the challenges have also changed. The force of the rushing water has lost its power and no longer can erode and cut deep valleys. Instead it tends to flood the banks of the river course and sometimes collect in areas as stagnant pools where mosquitoes breed.

There is a tendency to be slow and purposeless, coursing as the terrains permit…… A major contrast to the rushing water that takes its own course and determine its own path, ignoring the definition given by the terrain, purposeful and creating new streams.

Then at some point, the river tributaries will meet the ocean. I think 5 months is seemingly that magical point in the apprenticeship beyond which the learning seems to stagnate. The river begins to merge with salt water and form salt marshes. Certainly movement of water becomes limited and the entire ecosystem changes. Time to let the water terminate its journey on land. Learning stops and the apprenticeship stops.

All of us are products of schools systems and many of us come from stifling curriculum and become conditioned to be the ‘stagnating pool’. [The movie 3 Idiots from India provides a flavourful illustration of this sad reality.] It is true that we are shaped by that early schooling experience.

But after our formal education years, we are exposed to new environment that can help undo that previous conditioning. After all, conditioning continues through life experiences. How is it then that we are stuck with that initial conditioning and cannot be reshaped by new experiences post our school years?

It is really up to us if we want to leave the comfort of the known and step into the uncertainty of the unknown – to remain within the status quo of the stagnant pool and complain about life and everything………?

OR step out  of the victim of the circumstance mentality, chalk a new path with new experiences minus the ‘I miss the leeks, onions and garlic’ mindset. [Some of the Israelites who had escaped pharaoh's oppression facilitated by Moses’ leadership complained all the way about what they missed back in Egypt.]

The river, unfortunately, once it enters the ocean cannot do anything more, just loses it significance because the ocean is a bigger entity than the river. The river must create and maximise its impact during its entire journey on land. It can cut many valleys before it meanders towards the ocean.

As human beings, being lost into the ocean should only happen when we slip into the reality of eternity. Before that moment, we must create and maximise the impact of our lives as God intends it to be.

Ultimately, it is God who chartered the river’s course. So also, our life’s experiences are chartered by God. The river gives God the glory for its ways. Do we?