Iâm not particularly qualified by profession or education to give advice and counsel. Itâs widely known in a small circle that I make a mean tomato sauce, and I know many inventive ways to hold a baby while nursing, although I havenât had the opportunity to use any of them in years. I have a good eye for a nice swatch and a surprising paint chip, and I have had a checkered but occasionally successful sideline in matchmaking.
But Iâve never earned a doctorate, or even a masterâs degree. Iâm not an ethicist, or a philosopher, or an expert in any particular field. Each time I give a commencement speech I feel like a bit of a fraud. Yogi Berraâs advice seems as good as any: When you come to a fork in the road, take it!
I canât talk about the economy, or the universe, or academe, as academicians like to call where they work when theyâre feeling kind of grand. Iâm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is really all I know.
Donât ever confuse the two, your life and your work. Thatâs what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first. Donât ever forget what a friend once wrote to Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator had decided not to run for reelection because heâd been diagnosed with cancer: âNo man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.â
Donât ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: âIf you win the rat race, youâre still a rat.â
Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the
Dakota: âLife is what happens to you while youâre busy making other plans.â
Thatâs the only advice I can give. After all, when you look at the faces of a class of graduating seniors, you realize that each student has only one thing that no one else has. When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living.
But you are 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 the bus, or in the 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 donât talk about the soul very much anymore. Itâs so much easier to write a résumé than to craft a spirit. But a résumé
is cold comfort on a winter night, or when youâre sad, or broke, or lonely, or when
youâve gotten back the chest X ray and it doesnât look so good, or when the doctor writes âprognosis, poor.â
Here is my résumé. Itâs not what my professional bio says, proud as I am of all that:
I am a good mother to three good 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 my 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 I would have
nothing of interest to say to anyone, 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 I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger
house. Do you think youâd care so very much about those things if you developed an
aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?
Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water
Kevin L. Nielsen
S S Segran
C. J. Cherryh
Brian Freemantle
John Grisham
G. Willow Wilson
Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin
Victoria Davies
June Shaw
Van Allen Plexico