Knowledge, the Key
You stare at the blank, empty, cold wall, the ominous feeling of lost hope suffocating your mind. “I-I didn’t know,” you stutter aimlessly, trying to hold back a deluge of tears. The gavel still pounds hard on the judge’s desk as whispers of “guilty” emanate across the room.
You look into their malicious eyes and begin to wonder what the world has come to. The questions are never-ending, each more sarcastic and insulting than the previous. “They are attacking my faith, everything I believe in,” you think to yourself. “And I don’t know what to say.” They laugh at your obvious ignorance, because they have won this battle.
Knowledge is the key to success in life. The more you learn and obtain, the better off you will be. Most people would agree that everything choice that you make in life will affect you, either immediately or somewhere along your path in life. So, in turn, everything that you learn, either through school or through experience, will also affect your life.
Knowledge of laws and policies enables you to defend yourself when accused, whether the accusation is fair or not. For example, knowing the dress code for your school will help you to not make an ignorant mistake. Being uniformed on the policy won’t count as an excuse when you are punished for your misdemeanor. Understanding what rules you are expected to follow will save you a lot of time and trouble.
Understanding your faith will permit you to evangelize and defend you faith when necessary. Because many of the teaching of my Catholic faith are so controversial to modern culture, I must fully understand what I believe in and be able to answer questions and accusations of another who may not understand my faith.
I would agree that there are some things out there I would rather not know. Yet, ignorance of these evils will serve you no good either. When confronted with a difficult choice, you need to be educated on what outcomes could come from your choice. For example, if you are ever offered a cigarette, you would need to know what bad consequences could come from accepting it. Most teens do not know that teens are more likely to become addicted to nicotine faster than adults. Once you start as a teen, you are more likely to become a smoker for life (www.teenhelp.com). Also, most teens probably don’t know that if the amount of adolescent smokers continues, approximately 6.4 million current smokers will die from a smoking-related disease. Even though this may be difficult to hear, ignorance of these major issues will not save our present or future.
Sayings such as “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” are commonly used in today’s society. Many people look at this as the easy way out of telling the truth to their friends, or as a way out of living up to their choices. Unfortunately, the real truth is that even though the truth can hurt, lies always hurt more. Studies have been done that shows that lying has a corruptive effect on all relationships (www.allacademic.com). Destruction of relationships can cause a person to become lonely, or even depressed. Relying on another’s ignorance may cause harm to both this person and you. So in these cases (and many others), what you don’t know does hurt you.
Knowledge will also be the key to a successful, honest career. Any specialized career requires a large amount of education on the subject. A college education increases job flexibility, tax revenues, and income, as well as decreasing dependency on the government for loans (www.ericdigests.com). Also, higher education has been linked to better health for the educated individual and their children (www.ericdigests.org).
Knowledge is the key to success in life. Whether confronted on your faith or faced with a difficult choice, knowledge of your beliefs and possible consequences will enable you to make an educated argument or decision. As the famous Albert Einstein once stated:

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”