The Quiz
Now I see why powerful people often wear sunglasses. The spotlight
blinds them to reality. They suffer from a delusion that power means
something. They suffer from the misconception that titles make a
difference. They are under the impression that earthly authority will make
a heavenly difference.
Take this quiz.
Name the ten wealthiest people in the world.
Name the last ten Heisman trophy winners.
Name the last ten winners of the Miss America contest.
Name eight people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
How about the last ten Academy Award winners for best picture, or
The last decade's worth of World Series winners?
How did you do? I didn't do well either. With the exception of you
trivia hounds, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday too well.
Surprising how quickly we forget, isn't it? And what I've mentioned above
are no second-rate achievements. These are the best in their fields. But
the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades
and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
Think of three people you enjoy spending time with.
Name ten people who have taught you something worthwhile.
Name five friends who have helped you in a difficult time.
List a few teachers who have aided your journey through school.
Name half-a-dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.
Easier? It was for me, too. The lesson? The people who make a
difference are not the ones with the credentials, but the ones with the
concern. |
"It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to
receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow
my great-uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a
remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something
important about their professions, about medicine or commerce. 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 re election 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 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 mind, 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 I 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's 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. 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 kids 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 real 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 board walk 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, pan handling 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 board walk, 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."
Author: Anna Quindlen
Villanove Commencement Address |
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