February 6, 2002
Contact: Sarah Ray
802-443-5794
sray@middlebury.edu
Posted: February 6, 2002
I
had two brothers graduate college last year and heard a number of good
graduation speeches. All graduation speeches I have seen fall into two
categories, both of which a student speaker is grossly unqualified to
dabble in. The first is the personal agenda speech. In these speeches,
the speaker quickly forgets that the speech is intended for an audience
and expounds the virtues of his or her new book/tax cut/charitable organization
etc… We all know what that is like. The second is the “ordinary
people/extraordinary feats” speech. In it, the speaker usually inspires
the graduates to use their education to achieve some lofty goal, be it
dedication to civil service, the end of world poverty, world peace etc…
At my twin brother’s graduation last May, the speaker simply pleaded that
we all throw away our cellular phones because of the havoc they wreak
on personal relationships. Although there was nothing more sacred than
the cellular phone to my family at the time, we dutifully heeded the speaker’s
advice. I mean, what is the use of a cellular phone when we can instant
message each other with our palm pilots? Seriously though, after college
our relationships will change and we will have to begin listening more
to each other than to professors. Learning opportunities will not be so
obvious. As a student speaker, I am simply a colleague of yours. But I
strongly, strongly believe that everybody has wisdom to share. I hope
this speech reaches everybody, with a special Feb twist.
There
are a number of hard questions that we find ourselves giving long-winded
answers to these days. But as Febs, or February graduates, we have been
answering these questions for years. We all have had to explain that we
are not, in fact, normal. We did not graduate in May. Rather, we are Febs.
We are Febs because of a bond we share with everybody else here for one
of three reasons. First, there are those who were determined to be Febs
and checked the “February Admission” box on Middlebury’s application
five years ago. We’ll call this group the “Febs by Reason.”
Second, there are those who had that little box checked unbeknownst to
them. They are the “Febs by Force.” Third there are the “Regs”
or May graduates that, for one reason or another, did not see four years
as an appropriate window through which to finish college. They are the
“F&Բ;&Բ;ٱڲܱ.”
I
have heard that there is also another breed of Feb: those who are chosen
and reject their preordained Feb status by graduating in May. These people
enjoyed the close-knit Feb community until May rolled around and then
they left us for much bigger and much better things, such as unemployment.
To draw a parallel to a sitcom we are overly familiar with, these Regs
in Feb clothing are like Marcia Brady’s quarterback boyfriend from the
rival high school who dates her only long enough to steal her brother
Greg Brady’s football playbook. To keep with today’s festive atmosphere,
I will not give them a Feb name. I will not call them traitor Febs or
even Benedict Arnold Febs. They will simply not reap the benefits of graduating
today.
The
benefits of February graduation include the fulfillment of certain promises
made to us by the Feb panels at the visiting day for admitted students
five years ago. One such promise started: “Being a Feb is awesome.
You graduate on skis.” No joke, I really thought that we skied down
and received our diplomas while on skis until about three months ago.
Personally, I believe it is a good thing that we don’t; I am having reconstructive
knee surgery on Thursday because of a fall I took on that fated mountain.
I think that I will be the only graduate to use their graduation cane
next week. A second promise began: “Being a Feb is awesome. When
you graduate the job market is just waiting to suck you up.” We all
know that’s not the truth these days. Talk about hard questions, I have
been dodging the “job” bullet for months.
But
the question we all will face in about twenty minutes is “what are
we going to do from here on out?” In this sense the liberal arts
education is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, our educations afford
us incredible amounts of opportunity and leeway to shape our lives, regardless
of today’s unsavory job market. On the other hand, the freedom to choose
what we do can also be a burden. Until now, the path to here has been
clear, although difficult at times. But this is the first time that the
choice is really up to us. What lies ahead, and I believe that I speak
for almost all of the graduates, is a daunting quagmire of possibility
and opportunity.
The
problem is compounded by not simply deciding what to do, but also by identifying
how we will measure our success at it. Until now, success was simple to
measure; everybody was ranked on the same grade point system. Positions
on sports team, ski passes or significant others only complemented the
grade point average. However, after today everybody has to make decisions
about what to do and also devise a system for measuring success. We will
all find our own definitions and we have to be strong enough not only
to identify what works for us, but also to accept the diverse choices
that others make.
A
word of caution: these problems are not, in fact, new. Opportunity is
a mixed blessing for millions of people in the U.S. It is not surprising,
therefore, that country’s most popular genre of books focuses on “how
to get rich.” Hopefully we will ask different questions and demand
different answers because the second most popular genre of books in the
U.S. focuses on “how to recover one’s self esteem.”
But
there is a problem with this ordering of opportunity and success. It focuses
too much on what we do and not enough on who we are. This chain of events
has been ingrained in us since grade school. As kids we are asked what
we want to be when we grow up. We all answered “the president, an
astronaut, Bo from the Dukes of Hazard.” This is the malevolent side
of opportunity. We are trained to interpret certain jobs and experiences
as success itself. However, the most important aspects of our lives are
not those things, but rather the person behind them. Yet, no one asks
us who we want to be in elementary school. Nobody says that “I want
to be a good friend” or “I want to be a devoted father”
or “I want to still be an enthusiastic amateur at the sport or art
ٳ&Բ;&Բ;DZ.”
But
I believe that these will be the measures of success and happiness that
really matter. And I am not the only one that thinks this. Many psychiatrists,
geneticists, evolutionary biologists and physiologists, among others,
are involved in the study of happiness or, as they prefer to scientifically
call it “subjective well-being.” The largest on-going study
at the University of Michigan - lasting over twenty years - has sampled
changing levels of subjective well-being across innumerable countries
and cultures. Besides the influence of genetic makeup, they find that
our happiness is not a function of age, race or sex, or even education,
fame, fortune. Rather, it is a function of the way we live our lives and
whom we share them with.
These
empirical results should really come as no surprise. With time we would
probably figure them out ourselves. Our liberal arts educations will useful
to the extent that we can use them to think critically about our lives
and, most importantly, to create the security to enjoy our favorite activities,
our communities, our families and the friends that surround us now. Oh
and pay special attention to your Middlebury friends - chances are we
are going to marry each other! The only thing more fun than alumni weekend
is an alumni wedding.
Please
do not interpret this speech as a justification to underachieve in our
careers - that would be missing the point. But I want to make it painstakingly
clear that we are not what we do but rather who we are as people. To the
extent that who we are influences what we do the better. That is a simple
recipe for success. But it will demand courage to try and fail personally
and professionally.
Lastly,
I want to say that it has already taken courage to become Febs - that
decision is against the grain. I hope that the decision to be a Feb has
been beneficial, even if non-traditional. You can now decide whether the
speech I just gave should be called “extraordinary people/extraordinary
feats” or “ordinary people/ordinary feats.” Personally,
I think that the line between the two is somewhat blurry. However, one
thing is clear: graduating from Middlebury, graduating in this Feb class
is nothing short of extraordinary. Febs by reason, Febs by force and Febs
by default unite! Hey, let’s even let those traitor Febs in on the fun.
Let’s keep the Feb spirit alive throughout our lives and bring it to our
friends, our families, to the rest of world. Thank you.