CARPE DIEM, ETC.

Perhaps you didn’t listen as closely as you might have to your graduation speaker or maybe you can’t recall the advice you were given. Here’s a second chance. With college commencement recently concluded, we thought readers would be interested in some of advice speakers have offered new graduates in recent years.

Tess Gerritsen, novelist, physician, University of Maine, May 12, 2007

Some day in the future, you may wake up and think: I want a second chance. And you’ll remember that some lady who spoke at your commencement years before told you that something like this might happen. But you were too busy thinking about graduation parties and beer kegs so you weren’t really listening. What was her advice again?

For those of you who are listening, here it is.

If you have a dream, learn what you need to know to make it happen. … When I decided I wanted to be a novelist, I didn’t just talk about writing. I did it. I was working as a doctor at the time, so I wrote in the on-call room, I wrote on my lunch break, I wrote late at night after my kids were put to bed. And I read novels – lots and lots of them, to learn how other writers do it.

Occasionally, now, I’ll teach courses about writing, and it always astonishes me when I encounter students who tell me they dream of being novelists but they just can’t find the time to write. Or even worse, they don’t have the time to read. When I hear that, I want to tell them: Just give up now, because you aren’t a writer. You’ll never be a writer. You’re just a dreamer. And dreams don’t come true all by themselves.

Dana Gioia, poet, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Stanford University, June 17, 2007

And you now face the choice of whether you want to be a passive consumer or an active citizen. Do you want to watch the world on a screen or live in it so meaningfully that you change it?

That’s no easy task, so don’t forget what the arts provide.

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world – equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being -simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, “It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.” Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity. You don’t outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at each stage of your life.

Suzan-Lori Parks, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Mount Holyoke College, May 27, 2001

When someone gives you advice, you lay their advice alongside your own thoughts and feelings, and if what they suggest jibes with what you’ve got going on inside, then you follow their suggestion. On the other hand, there are lots of people out there who will suggest all kinds of stupid stuff for you to incorporate into your life.

There are lots of people who will encourage you to stray from your heart’s desire. Go ahead and let them speak their piece, and you may even want to give them a little smile depending on your mood. But if what they suggest does not jibe with the thoughts and feelings that are already alive and growing beautifully inside you, then don’t follow their suggestion. Think for yourself. Listen to your heart. Tune in to your gut.

Steve Jobs, billionaire founder of Apple Computers and Pixar, Stanford University, June 14, 2005

Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going (after being fired from Apple) was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

Will Ferrell, comedian, Harvard University, June 5, 2003

As I stare out into this vast sea of shining faces, I see the best and brightest. Some of you will be captains of industry and business. Others of you will go on to great careers in medicine, law and public service. Four of you – and I’m not at liberty to say which four – will go on to magnificent careers in the porno industry. I’m not trying to be funny. That’s just a statistical fact.