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More Than Just Facts: Why Knowledge Matters

Before going through this post, do something: pick up any item around you and write down five to ten things you know about it. Better still, as a student, choose an item or a concept in your desired future profession and write down at least their five uses you know. Whatever you wrote and whatever you couldn't write about the item determines the level of your influence and advantage over the item. That's your knowledge and that’s your power.

What is Knowledge?

Let’s start with the description of information. Information is data or facts about something or someone, like details, statistics, or news. Knowledge, therefore, is the information about someone or something that you possess – about their functions, usefulness, purposes, strengths, weaknesses, benefits, etc. It's often gained or acquired through thinking, reading, experience, conversation, experimentation, observation, usage, learning, listening, and practice.

Why Do People Acquire Knowledge?

People acquire knowledge about many things – people, ideas, events, animals, processes, nature, diseases, viruses, organisms, inventions, activities, problems, places, etc. because knowledge is the foundation of everything in life. It's no overstatement to say there's no life or meaningful existence without knowledge as it determines how we relate with every other thing. Knowledge is powerful because it makes people or things we have information about more manageable in our hands. It enables the possessor to create things and solve problems related to what they have information about.

Knowledge and Profession

To succeed in life, we often need to be known for something or associated with something – and that requires possessing lots of information about that thing we want to be known for, making us knowledgeable. That's how people become professionals. For instance, having lots of information about the human body lets you solve health problems and you become a professional health practitioner. The more you know about health issues, the more fame, honor, and wealth you tend to gain. That’s how it is in every profession.

Knowledge: School and Education

We live and survive in life simply because of the knowledge we have gained over time. Our pains, losses, failure, worries, and sorrows are the consequences of the information we do not have. Life, being in stages, always finds a way of getting us prepared ahead of many things (challenges and problems) in the future through the information we can access in the present. Many who get lost and find life too difficult to live today are those who did not acquire yesterday's information about the problems of today. The victory of today is the outcome of the information we gained yesterday and the one we are gaining today will become our knowledge to deal with tomorrow's challenges.

It's for that purpose school is established, and gaining knowledge is a major part of why people go to school for it’s believed that all information that’s to be known about everything is reserved there, and that's why possession of knowledge is a key component of education.