The Graduate's socks

A few nights ago, I met a Prof who asked me to work up some content for making a two minute speech at a graduation ceremony.

I sat on my comp that night and thought. Is there anything I know that might help these youngsters, brimming with youthfulness?

No answer.

Ok, what if I go back to myself, when I graduated. Is there anything of value that I can give to my-younger-self, twelve years ago? When exactly did I graduate? How come I don't remember? Oh, yes. I was sitting with Ramesh those days, like full time, every single day. And I couldn't pull myself out of Mumbai to go to Poona even for a day, to get that Film Institute diploma.

Those were the days, dipping, pouring with Guru-bhakti. The fascination with his feet. I remember knitting him a pair of ankle socks with the thickest wool you can find, for Guru Poornima. In retrospect, I must admit Ramesh is an extremely tolerant fellow. Who would need woolen socks in Mumbai? But he accepted them, he even let me touch his feet on numerous occasions when I 'tried on' the socks to check for size! And to think I put on those socks on him on Guru Poornima, and prevented the rest of the seekers from touching his bare feet.

Getting back to the point of the advisory board. If there is anything I would like to say to myself at that point? Prof, dear sir, it would take less than two minutes.

In one word, 'Salaam'.

However, I understand that those who turn up for the graduation ceremony, are, like, not sitting at their Guru's feet. So here is a nice, long piece of inspiring talk. Shorten it, if you can, and put it in your socks!

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

‘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. You will 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 accounts but also 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 cold comfort on a winter’s night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve received your 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 work stand in the way of being a good parent. 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 husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. 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 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 this 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 at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet 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. 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. Take money you would have spent on beer 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, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour 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 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. I learned to look at all the good in the world and 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 back yard 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’.