Distinguished faculty, parents, honored guests, and most of all, students:
I stand before you today as a 1953 graduate of this very institution, and I consider my diploma among my most prized possessions. I have so much to discuss with you. If I had only known at age 5 what I know today.
What I want you to do is close your eyes and think of the best time you’ve had here. Ok, open them. How many of you say it was on the playground? Having fun with your classmates? Playing games? Laughing a lot? Having celebrations? Singing Baby Beluga? Showing a parent where you and each person sit in class? What have I missed?
Here’s what you need to know today, and for the next 40 or so years. Whatever you decide for work—a fire person, chef, teacher, dog trainer, cable news commentator, computational statistics and biotech double major, the first woman to walk on Mars, entrepreneur, weatherperson, mechanic, or kid’s speechwriter—will be what you do. Doing is a big deal. Once you exit this school, you will engage in different kinds of games aimed to get you to do better. You’ll be rewarded. Stickers are only the beginning. There will be ribbons just for showing up, grades, reading groups named for animals, maybe even some money from a parent or loved one when you bring home a “good” report card. You’ll get some important advice—like “leave it all on the field,” or “you can do anything you put your mind to.” I’m not sure I know what these mean, and hopefully you’ll figure it out.
What used to be a pretend search for dinosaurs on the playground will be replaced with worksheets and standardized tests in the classroom. Some of you will blow through these. Others will struggle. I hope that you have teachers who understand Professor Carol Dweck’s theory of mastery and subscribe to a learning process where growth is good, effort is important, and failure is a thing, not a person. Due to circumstances beyond your control, you’ll experience a gradual deterioration in autonomy and creativity. Pain is more at a psychic level than physical. It only hurts when you laugh. Some of you will sit in rows of chairs facing the front of the room for the rest of your life, where droning, memorizing, testing, and forgetting most of what you learned—particularly algebra—is a way of life. Some of you will have teachers who take personal interest in you and your success. They may never say this, but you know they have your back. I’m sad to say that some of you will stop raising your hand in class because you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, even when you know the right answer. I never knew that until I read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg a few years back. I highly recommend it. You should also read Alice Paul Tapper’s editorial in The New York Times and how she convinced the Girl Scouts to grant a merit badge for raising your hand.2
As you ascend in the workplace, you may feel like an impostor, that someone will discover you really don’t know what you’re doing. Some of you think that anything less than perfect is failure. That happens to a lot of us—just a bunch of unneeded pressure and anxiety, which is why 63 percent of people say they experience a moderate to high level of stress on the job.3
Then, there’s the world of work. Remember climbing the ladder up to the top of the slide? Well, work’s a little like that. You’ll climb a different sort of ladder, the Corporate Ladder, but the goal is to keep going higher, not slide down. Sliding down or falling off are not good. Thinking that a good job should speak for itself is not reality. The American Dream and belief in hard work are wonderful concepts, but there’s more to success. It’s confusing, I know. Some people do ok at Climbing the Ladder. Keeping your head down and achieving results are very important, like completing your coloring assignment, only more intense and way more serious.
Many can’t see the top of the ladder because it doesn’t exist, or it doesn’t exist for them. Some of you will be limited to how high you can climb. Why? That’s a great question you’ll need to ask from this day forward.
My soon-to-be fellow graduates—there’s something you need to know today, this moment, right now. Finding meaning and joy in the workplace should be as easy as finding meaning and joy on the playground. What you decide to do for work—which, the parents in the audience can attest to, is somewhere in the range of 11 distinct jobs by age 50.4
What I want you to understand with all my heart is what defines you is who you are, not what you do. Take a minute to reflect on the happiness you’ve had the last couple of years. I know that school parties and candy can shape your responses, not to mention your blood sugar levels. But what about appreciating others for who they are, making friends, doing things that are fun and creative, and engaging in something bigger than yourselves, helping other people, raising the flag, serving cookies when it’s your turn, and thanking Ms. Sheli for being your teacher. I’m not asking you to think about what you’ve done, let alone accomplished. I’m asking you to think about who you are, the people you love and appreciate, and the people who love and appreciate you, and how they give you meaning and purpose.
You want to know what’s ironic? You’re going to hit a point in your career where you’ll want to unlearn a lot of stuff and get back to this very point you are at today. Beginning next year, you will be motivated by all types of rewards to strip out your ability to achieve results from your other capabilities. Once you stop going for the answer and Climbing the Ladder, I challenge you—implore you—plead with you—to engage in the workplace by putting others at the center of your universe, to build their capabilities, and to increase your impact and meaning in the organization. This is your responsibility, our responsibility. This makes us strong and connected. Repeat after me, “I’m strong and connected.”
There’s no better training ground for the workplace you’ll experience than the playground you’ve inhabited this past year, where creativity, freedom, learning respect, appreciating all those around you, and having fun are the goal, not the means.
As you prepare to march down the red carpet to receive your much deserved diploma, I leave you with two words—pursue meaning. Find out what’s intrinsically motivating and go for it. Then, help others go for it. What you demonstrate now, to your parents, friends, and the world, is the importance of being. Finding meaning in what you do is worth it because you’re worth it.
One more thing—the cake and ice cream are on me!
Now go out and change the world!
Dr. Alan M. Patterson, July 2021