On a recent flight back to Jakarta from Singapore, I found myself seated in Seat 8A—a seemingly ordinary spot that became the backdrop for an extraordinary moment of reflection. Armed with a book courtesy of a friend, I oscillated between the world within its pages and my own thoughts, triggered by the profound stories I was reading. The book I was reading was Like The Flowing River by Paulo Coelho.

I learned a little bit, cracked a little smile, and asked “So, let’s start with a light question, followed by “What is the true meaning of life?” and immediately I kind of laughed, almost about to say “I’m just kidding”. Before I was able to do that, she replied, “That life is about you against yourself”.

Imagine the following stories:

A retirement-age couple decided to move into a violent neighborhood filled with gangs, drugs, prostitution,
A young millionaire giving away all the riches he had worked hard for,
A mother to an unborn child with down syndrome deciding to keep the baby.

By most standards, their actions do not make any sense.

As Sir Ken Robinson once indicated, schools are made to produce people to be placed in factories. They also reduce the genius potentials of kids tremendously because they are not promoting thinking, but focusing on the menial things. I’d like to think that proper education actually makes us become better thinkers thus helping us make better judgements.