Dictionary

The school 'Donlon elementary', where my daughter is enrolled, have something called CUBS rule, everyone must follow the rules. In corporate world lingo, this encapsulate their organizational value.

• Care for others
• Use good judgement
• Be respectful
• Stay safe.

Every now and then students are recognize for demonstrating one or more of these values. The way these kids will understand the meaning of these 4 words ( Care, Judgement, Respect, Safety ) is definitely different than someone who read the meaning of these words in a dictionary.

I believe we have given too much importance to the traditional system of education ( reading, writing, lectures, exams etc ) The whole system of education that we see today is a well designed system to create Clerks, engineers, doctors, lawyers etc. It was never designed to create 'Human being'

We must understand that our life is not just a 'Career' or an 'Occupation'. It's a a unique combination of many things. Health, Wealth ( wealth is not money alone, It means Money + Time to spend, the way you wish to spend ), Relationship, Friends and many more.

As a human being you are by default very intelligent. You are an explorer who wish to explore and find out new things, you are a scientist who wish to invent new ways of doing thing and build new things.

From my life's experiences what I came to conclusion is that, The education system has negatively effected in the way a human being naturally acts towards educating itself to Explore and Learn new things. That's the reason while we see folks around us very successful in their Career/Occupations, at the same time, have challenges with health, relationship, and other areas. I believe they don't understand the meaning of certain words in its true sense and a mere definition from a dictionary through a google search is not sufficient.

I am fascinated with words and their meaning. True meaning ( with clarity, know how to identify, how to use in life ) not merely the dictionary meaning. Dictionary have definitions not meaning. Definitions helps us to identify and communicate. It helps us understand how to use words in our writing. It does not help us to use them in our life.

In this series of article, I will introduce various words which, I am sure you know. However either you have not used in your life or have used in a limited way ( possibly by coincident and not consciously, with complete understanding. and yes, I am not going to do the same thing a dictionary does, I will find information from internet which will bring more clarity and present here.

This being the first article of the series, I will introduce one of the most misunderstood word 'Empathy'. The following video by 'Brené Brown explains 'Empathy' the best.

Note: Feel free to suggest words that you think are important for all of us to understand better and use in our life, to make our life more meaningful and enjoyable. It need not be in only one area of life such as relationship, It would be health, finance or any areas.