In our early youth we all take up jobs to earn money. Right. But do all of us enjoy doing whatever we are supposed to do. Remember, that is a very vital question. Unless you have internal satisfaction in doing a job, you better quit because in the end, nobody is happy, neither you who despise the job nor your employer who finds a reluctant employee eating out of his hand, displacing a willing worker. I recall a seminar addressed by a senior vice president of an MNC, attended by me where the venerable gentleman opened his speech by stating that he started his carrier as a window cleaner and that he loved his job only too well. I used to go out early in the morning, he added, and being a green horn, was much amused at what happened on the other side of the window.

So was the case of a college drop out who minted money by playing guitar in a roaring night- club. His daily tips for playing popular tunes on request amounted to more than what a college degree holder could ever aspire. And mind you, he loved his job as well.

However, all the above instances are not provoked against college education because that kind of education also pays off. Precisely, what I mean to say is that college education is for those who have already made up their minds on specialized themes like nuclear science, space technology, higher mathematics, gas propulsion and so on and so forth. For average individuals, college degrees are not mandatory like the School Leaving Certificate.

Every day we meet hundreds of people with hundreds of untold stories, some credible, some that sound like fairy tales. Rushing through the Grand Central sometime ago I came across a person whose great grandfather owned one of the busiest railroad companies in the United States. He died at the age of eighty-nine as a billionaire yet maintaining the frugal lifestyle that he led as a linesman in another company where he started his carrier. On being asked casually what he did for a living, the mid-forty gentleman responded by saying that he led an uneventful life by being a professor of literature in a local college. By the way, I enquired, do you enjoy it. Far from it, said the absent-minded professor, the students are un-attentive, the campus littered and the hostels reek of sex related abuses. But then, I interrupted, why do you pursue such ignominy to which the poor chap exclaimed that he was educated to do only that and nothing else.

I am sure by this time you appreciate what I am trying to tell. There are plenty of jobs around us both for the college educated as well as for individuals without college degrees. So select a job that you like, a job that gives you pleasure of performance. If not, the World Wide Web will find it for you.