Last night, my husband came home from his first real estate school class complaining. He has reading, you see, and some homework. Granted, he chose an accredited school that is quite involved. If he is five minutes late, they lock the door and he has to pay 25 bucks to retake the class on-line. This is the sort of real estate class that provides a foundation for being a broker and/or appraiser too, so it isn’t one of those help-you-study-just-to-assist-you-in-passing-the-test classes. This one is more information based, with a reputation that employers look for, for those with long-term, serious plans in the field.
Nevertheless, I looked at him drolly and said, “Homework? And you’re expecting empathy from me?”
He sniffed and said, “I’m NOT in a master’s program. This is different. I don’t have time for homework.”
Ha, the only thing “different” is our personalities. He likes to learn as he goes, and he doesn’t have the fortitude or the patience to learn anything in a traditional way. He gets a smidgen of information, and he runs with it. I tend to feel a smidgen of information only wets my appetite. I’m certainly not comfortable “running” with it. If anything, I’m someone whom the more she knows, the more she discovers she doesn’t know. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and as the outer layers of the onion are unpeeled, I’m compelled to keep stripping away to see what is underneath. Most things are more complex than they seem on the surface, and digging in to unveil the mystery makes me feel a deeper connection with the subject. My husband, on the other hand, would just swallow the entire onion in one ungraceful bite, burp, then say, “Taste’s good, give me another onion.. . or how about a kumquat?”
I told him we could do our reading together at night, and even do some homework side by side. He snarled.
I know what he is planning. He will do the same thing he did when we went to college together. I didn’t enroll until I was 35. I was very intent on becoming formally educated. He waited about a year, then decided to follow suit, claiming it wasn’t healthy for one-half of a team to have a life alerting experience without the other participating. If you aren’t careful, a couple can grow apart when individual growth upsets the balance between them. I didn’t agree totally, but I understood his theory, and it’s nice to think your spouse wants to share in an experience that is meaningful to you. Therefore, he enrolled – and began taking some of the same BA classes I was in. As I poured through the readings and assignments, he would maybe glance at the book. He is a good faker – but beyond that – he has a quick mind, like one of those computers in futuristic movies that is programmed to teach itself. It learns on top of what it learns, like some kind of pyramid intellectual system. When we had tests, don’t ya know, he often whipped my butt (though my academic papers couldn’t be topped). His ease with making the grade through a surface attention span annoyed the dickens out of me. Finally, I refused to let him take any of the classes I was taking. He wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was about college, and even though he came in with some preliminary classes to match those I already had taken, he enrolled in fewer classes, so his progress was a bit slower. I graduated over a year before him, and then, he just discontinued. He claimed he had gotten all he wanted and needed from college. And I think that is true. He certainly learned a great deal, and doesn’t feel anything intellectually lacking in his world. And here I am, still murking around in books and academia. It isn’t that one of us is less intellectual, or smarter, or more devoted to personal growth than the other. We are just different.
Anyway, I suspect he will glance through the real estate books only a few times, and still end up the star student. And when he completes the course, he’ll talk to people in the business, use his instinct, and before you know it, he will be up and running, giving advice to others who by all measurable standards, should be giving advice to him.
In the meantime, he will grumble, sigh, and complain because of the damn inconvenience regarding what is involved in learning the basics. But, like it or not, he’ll do what it takes. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what counts. The “doing” is vital, even though doing is often no fun. Fun lurks in the “having done”. Like dieting. Giving up food is a drag, but being thin is a pleasure. It’s all a matter of faith – trusting you are capable of following through to create the life you desire.
All journeys begin one-step at a time. At a leisurely walk, or a dead run. Regardless of speed or what shoes you are wearing, whether you pick a steep upward slope to tread, or a simple straight paved road that won’t make you break a sweat. A step, is a step, is a step.
Heart of Ginny 