As I wait for the unexpected post-high-school-graduation-depression to pass, I think of the advice my daughter and her classmates were clobbered with on commencement day. Follow your dreams. Do what you love. Find your passion.
We track nearly everything in this country, but one stat we don’t have is the number of dreams that get killed every year.
We encourage young people to pursue their dreams, but we don’t equip them with the answer to one troubling question. How does one find his passion when passion is a luxury?
I’d give graduates this advice:
Be patient. You are never too old to have a dream.
Remember that a dream does not have to pay the bills.
Don’t make the mistake that what you do for a living defines who you are.
But then, sometimes I fail to distinguish between advice and the weary hopefulness of a man haunted by his dreams.
Congratulations to you and your daughter!
I liked your advice quite a bit. It's a rare person who manages to find a way to pay the bills by following their passion, and there's no shame in separating the two. In most cases, those who do manage to merge them are only able to find a partial intersection between passion and profit, which may compromise both.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at June 21, 2005 08:21 PM'Dear landlord,
Please don’t put a price on my soul.
My burden is heavy,
My dreams are beyond control...'
Bobby, I remembered a book I used to recommend to my counseling clients years ago. It is called "Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood," by Marsha Sinetar (1989). The author discusses the questions you posed about following your dreams. Congrats on your daughter's launching.
Posted by: CarolGee at June 22, 2005 05:37 AMFor about 5 years after college, Ben and I would give highschool graduates a copy of a book called "Major in Success". One of the hardest things to figure out is how to implement your dreams -- and this book has more practical advice about what to get out of a college education for "dream jobs" than anything else I've seen. (It even helps for more run of the mill dream jobs like "Software Engineer.")
Posted by: Sara Brumfield at June 24, 2005 04:09 PMMark Danner's graduation address to Berkeley English majors costs $3 but it's worth the money. His key point being that an English major has necessarily become unusual by seeing the difference between what people say and what happens. Don't know if English majors are unique that way but it's an interesting thing to say about intellectuals generally.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 24, 2005 08:52 PMThe singing gets tiresome, but I have enjoyed Garrison Keillor's recent promos for English Majors.
My favorite bit is this proclamation whenever anything dreadful happens to the protagonist: "Remember, when you're a writer, everything is material."
Thank God I'm not a writer.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at June 26, 2005 07:42 AM