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Return to E-mail Discussion page ---------- From: "Kelly Bromley" <kellybromley@hotmail.com> To: duncan@scienceintegration.org Subject: FW: Happy New Year to Everyone Date: Fri, Jan 7, 2000, 7:08 PMI felt this to be somewhat fitting with mysteries and meaning of life. Thanks for the info: Kelly >Subject: Happy New Year to Everyone >Happy New Year to you, this message may be long but it is a good way >to start the year - looking at the view... >Anna Quindlen's Villanova Commencement Address at Boston College... >------------------------------------------------ >It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to >receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to >follow my great-uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle >Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told >you something important about their professions, about medicine or >commerce. I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me >at a disadvantage, talking to you today. I'm a novelist. My work is human >nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your >work. The second is only part of the first. Don't ever forget what a friend >once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for >re-election because he'd been diagnosed with cancer: "No man ever said on his >deathbed 'I wish I had spent more time in the office.'" Don't ever forget the >words my father sent me on a postcard last year: "If you win the rat race, >you're still a rat." Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the >driveway of the Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other >plans." > >You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one >else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same >degree; 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 account, but your soul. People don't talk about the soul very much >anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. >But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're >sad,or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and >they're not so good. > > Here is my resume. I am a good mother to three 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 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, there >would be nothing to say to you today, 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 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 paycheck, 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 notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a >breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how >a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls >with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and >first finger. 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. > >Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a >student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to >others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. >Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the >azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a >full moon hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night. 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. > >> ><< >Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. >Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do >well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be >enough. > >> ><< >It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. >It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen >of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids' eyes, the way >the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. >It is so easy to exist instead of live. > >> ><< >I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad >happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my >druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned >from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. 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. I >learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it >back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, >in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: >Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. >Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. 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. Well, you can learn all >those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a >professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love and laughs and a >connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes and ears open. >Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is >everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his >deathbed "I wish I had spent more time at the office." > >I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island >maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the >homeless survive in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of >the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me >about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were >gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, >hiding from the police amidst the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Cyclone and >some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he >stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting >now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them. >And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't he >check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at the ocean >and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view." > >And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to >look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today, >words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place >to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed. |
