This is a commencement speech made by Anna
Quindlen at Villanova:
"REAL LIFE IS ALL I KNOW"
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 had been diagnosed with cancer: "No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at 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 will 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 custody of your life.Your particular life...Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also 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 am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows
mean what they say.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me...I call them on the
phone, and I meet them for lunch.
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 WOULD WANT 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, 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. Pick up the
phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.
GET A LIFE in which you are generous. 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, and our minutes. It
is so easy to take for granted 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 to live.
I LEARNED TO LIVE many years ago. Something really, really bad
happened to me, something that changed my life in ways...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 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.
"REAL LIFE IS ALL I KNOW"
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 had been diagnosed with cancer: "No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at 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 will 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 custody of your life.Your particular life...Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also 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 am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows
mean what they say.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me...I call them on the
phone, and I meet them for lunch.
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 WOULD WANT 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, 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. Pick up the
phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.
GET A LIFE in which you are generous. 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, and our minutes. It
is so easy to take for granted 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 to live.
I LEARNED TO LIVE many years ago. Something really, really bad
happened to me, something that changed my life in ways...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 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment