Just doing my job!

Reading Time : 3 to 5 mins.

"I'm just doing my job!" is not enough. What problems are you solving?

Breaking news : If you find yourself using the Calculator more often, then your mental problem solving ability is on the decline.

Yet people prefer to do it, because it is easier, faster & accurate.What's wrong with that? Is it not better to be safe than sorry? Imagine short-changing a customer at a grocery store. They'd never trust us again.

True. But if they stop trusting you and start trusting a machine, then what happens? Where does that leave you?

Well, you need to find newer problems to solve. Find new areas of specializations perhaps. But hey, all your life you've been following instructions from systems and protocols, from parents to bosses,how can you start now? How can you start to think on your own now? It scares you. Why can't life go back to the way it was before, just follow simple instructions and get on with it?

Our mental ability diminishes if we continually work in 100% efficient environments, not so with the Robots. If  people followed instructions all the time without any intelligent deviation or silly mistakes,human race would be wiped out sooner than expected.This is exactly the standardization Robots are looking to replicate, initially running simple tasks & later complex AI tasks.

So does it mean we don't need followers? Not true. We do. We need intelligent followers.We need more people to question status quo. We need more people to think differently.

And how is that possible? It begins in school.

Teachers need to change the way they teach, which is not just about completing the syllabus, but ensuring the students learn. They need to make sure the students understand the root cause of a problem and stimulate their problem solving ability.

As Gyanban once said, the problem and solution lies within , what you prioritize determines the course of your life.

The onus also lies with the Education boards, they need to update the curriculum to stay updated and be cognizant of the ecosystem is changing ever so quickly. So when I heard that CBSE will change course & focus on problem solving ability instead of ROTEability , this is truly a great step forward in that direction.

This impacts not just the students & teachers, but the  parents as well.

Many parents drive their kids to cram & scram!

They will need to rethink their way of parenting. Students who stuff their brains without understanding the why's & the how's tend to forget everything right after the exams. Parents are happy because the race is for the marks and not for the learning.

99.2% vs 99.4% will make or break your child's future, is the biggest trap most parents fall into. Ironic isn't? Yet the most brilliant leaders of our times have never seen those scores. The pinnacle of academic excellence does not guarantee the pinnacle of life.

This is not to say education is not important. It clearly is. But learning far exceeds the education.And I see more and more people worried about education,accreditions, certifications, but few really worry about understanding the impact their education makes in the world.

This also leads to a pool of self-centered myopic individuals whose primary aim and goal in life is to think about how they can get by their lives maximizing material comforts. In the race to attain more material comforts, they follow more instructions. When they become mere followers and not thinkers, they are easily replaceable.

The idea is not to become a rebel without a cause. The idea is not differ to make noise or draw attention without intention.The idea is not sound different for the heck of it. The idea is also not to not enjoy your earned material comforts.

But the idea is to think and solve more problems for the world instead of just for yourself. One might argue, if everyone solved their own problems, we'd have no problems collectively, won't we? Nope. We won't. We will have bigger problems. Guess why? Because each problem which you solve only for yourself, could become a bigger problem for someone else. And you can't turn a blind eye to that. Because someone else' solution will come back to bite you as a problem!

Life is indeed a cycle.

So if you are boss reading this, encourage the bloke who questions status quo instead hollering "just do your job". If you are a teacher, encourage a student to ask more questions instead of worrying about completing the syllabus. If you are a parent, encourage your wards to think and clarify doubts instead of providing everything on the platter. We all play a part in shaping not just our own future, but our world's as well.

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