Earning for Learning

At what age did you start earning?

In India the typical answer for well educated families would be somewhere between 22 and 26 years of age. Assuming a lifespan of 75 years, this means that we spend almost 1/3’rd of our lives just learning how to survive the remaining 2/3’rds of our life! In the animal kingdom this is a truly unique feature to the human species. No other species requires so much ‘nurturing time’ in order to get ready to go about living their lives.

We recently had a session with a group of youngsters where a question was posed, ‘Think about a choice you made in your life that has really impacted your life as it is right now’. As we listened to sharing, one young girl raised her hand and said ‘It was the choice of college where I am studying - it allows me to finish classes by 12 noon, and take up a regular half day job after that. Because of this I believe I am developing myself and learning so many things at a pace which I would have never had only by going to college.’

This really struck me. I started earning for the first time when I was 22, i.e. just after Engineering college. This girl I spoke about was probably 19. I recently met a young graphic designer who started teaching art to other kids when he was just 14 years old. Another young lady has been teaching dance in a very committed way since the age of 18.

We posed a challenge to a group of students in our recent