I remember that when I was young, my parents used to tell me to study to become someone in life, and although I can understand now what my parents meant, at that time I thought that only by studying could I stand out from the crowd, that only by studying could I be noticed, excel. However, now I know that beyond academic degrees, there is an essence that is above all things and makes you BE.
We are not what we have. A person with three academic degrees, for example, will never be the smartest of all, nor will the one with the most money be the happiest. Having things, possessions, trophies, does not guarantee that you are at the top of the mountain of dreams. Obtaining and having will never be synonymous with happiness, joy, or even feeling fulfilled.
I have seen how there are people who lack nothing and yet feel incomplete, unhappy, broken. And the truth is that our mood will never have anything to do with the material goods we possess, with the objects we have acquired, or with the degrees we have achieved. A doctor will die just like his patient dies, perhaps not under the same conditions, but he will die nonetheless, even if he has a thousand specializations and a thousand master's degrees.
That is why I believe that each person is what they are, beyond all acquired things. A person, in principle, should not change because they have a certain amount of power, because they have university degrees or money. A person is who they are when, at the end of the day, stripped of everything, they lie down and sleep peacefully or with worries.
So, I am Nancy, a person with many flaws, but for better or worse, all my friends know about them. I met one of my best friends when I was 12 years old, and by her side I am not a teacher, nor a master, nor a graduate, I am a woman who works, who has problems, who listens and who talks. Nothing separates me from her, even though she has no degrees and is just a housewife.
Nothing I have at this moment, at least material things, has influenced who I am: I am only the sum of experiences that have shaped me. If I were to die at this moment, my death would not be different even if the epitaph highlighted the degrees earned.
