Reality Check
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:20 amA speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen, at the
graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded
an Honorary PhD.
Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. 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 mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts,
but also your soul.
I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen.
I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends, and them to me.
Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be
a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch.
I would be rotten, 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 pay cheque, 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 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 email.
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.
It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago.
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. 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!
graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded
an Honorary PhD.
Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. 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 mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts,
but also your soul.
I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen.
I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends, and them to me.
Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be
a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch.
I would be rotten, 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 pay cheque, 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 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 email.
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.
It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago.
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. 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!