ArthurWood
New member
This is the commencement speech by the writer,
> >Anna Quindlen, to the graduates at Villanova this
> >year.
> >
> >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 had been diagnosed with cancer:
> >
*** "No man ever said on his deathbed, 'I wish I had
*** spent more time at 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 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
> >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 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 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, 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. Pick up the phone. Send an
> >e-mail. 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 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 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. 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 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.
>
My wife found a lump 8 years ago and it was malignant. She survived but it certainly changed our outlook on life..... and work.
> >Anna Quindlen, to the graduates at Villanova this
> >year.
> >
> >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 had been diagnosed with cancer:
> >
*** "No man ever said on his deathbed, 'I wish I had
*** spent more time at 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 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
> >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 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 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, 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. Pick up the phone. Send an
> >e-mail. 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 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 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. 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 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.
>
My wife found a lump 8 years ago and it was malignant. She survived but it certainly changed our outlook on life..... and work.
