My mother always told me, "Anyone can take your necklace, your house, your car, your money, but no one can ever take your education away from you." Is this the truth?

It’s so, so true. You can tell an educated person by the way they speak, the way they figure things out, the way they interact with others, and basically navigate through life. That’s not to say an uneducated person is not interesting or can’t navigate but it’s the time an educated person will take answering a question, mulling it over, then giving the answer in a thoughtful reply. I’ve noticed at the mixed parties I go to that people will either gravitate or avoid educated people depending on their self esteem level. That’s because educated people have a lot of confidence. It comes from knowledge. If you know things, have learned to look at them from all angles, you see them in a different way. That can be intimidating. That’s pretty powerful. Uneducated people see things in a more flat, here to there way. From one subject to another without really getting to the core of it. An educated person will be able to look at an object and see it in a totally different way than an uneducated person would. This comes from learning higher mathematics. I find that very fascinating. I am uneducated and had the chance to go to college and I ‘effed it off and have struggled with low paying jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, not being able to figure things out that should be simple to figure out, low self esteem, self doubt, I have zero confidence, and have many regrets. The biggest being that I wasted my chance to go to college. I wish I had smarts. Or as Homer Simpson would put it “I am so smart - S M R T”. That’s how I feel sometimes.