I have just returned from my youngest daughter's college commencement ceremony. As you can imagine, I am overflowing with pride and joy for Jen as she enters this new phase in her life. I also recalled my own undergraduate commencement over three decades ago. I have absolutely no recollection of who the speaker was or what wonderful words of wisdom he/she imparted to us freshly minted college grads embarking on our adult lives in 1979. Their words fell on deaf ears, I was too interested in hurrying on to the next step in my plan and moving into adulthood. Perhaps that is why I enjoy reading exceptional commencement addresses now -- to read the words of inspiration through a different life lens; one with a bit less impatience and perhaps a bit more perspective on the joys and sorrows of being human. I am not sure what my 21 year old self would have thought of Anna Quindlen's commencement address to Villanova graduates in 2000, but I hope she would have been even half as inspired as I am now.
"I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at
a
disadvantage, talking to you today. I'm a novelist. My work is human
nature.
Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your
work. The second is only part of the first.
Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when
the
senator decided not to run for reelection because he'd been diagnosed with
cancer: "No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in
the
office." Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last
year: "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat."
Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of
the
Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one
else
has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree;
there
will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But
you
will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your
particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your
life
on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your
minds,
but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much
easier
to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort
on
a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've
gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried
never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no
longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen,
I
try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make
marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
I
am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would
be
nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But
call
them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I
try
to laugh.
I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things
were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work
is
all you are.
So here is what I wanted to tell you today:
Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion,
the
bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much
about
those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in
your
breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing
itself
on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a
red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with
concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first
finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who
love
you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you
look
at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how
to
best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an
e-mail.
Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you
are
generous.
Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew
up;
look at a full moon hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night.
And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no
business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that
you
want to spread it around. Once in a while take money you would have spent
on
beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or
sister.
All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing
well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives: our days,
our
hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the
azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our
kid's
eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and
rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. I learned to live
many
years ago.
Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my
life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed
at
all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest
lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I
learned
that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you
get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give
some
of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried
to
do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them
this:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear.
Read
in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think
of
life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and
passion, as it ought to be lived.
Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a life, a
full life, a professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love
and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes
and
ears open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is
everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his
deathbed
I wish I had spent more time at the office. I found one of my best
teachers
on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and
I
was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months.
He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet
over
the side, and he told me about his schedule; panhandling the boulevard
when
the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature
went
below freezing, hiding from the police amidst the Tilt a Whirl and the
Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of
the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we
were
sitting now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after
he
read them.
And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why
didn't
he check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at
the
ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."
And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to
look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today,
words
of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go,
nowhere
to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed." ~ Anna Quindlen (2000 Villanova Commencement Address)
