Unsolicited Advice for Non-Graduates
Consider this my graduation speech.
There are two times of year in which it is totally acceptable to dispense unsolicited advice — January and May. January is the time of fresh starts, new resolutions, and big goals. May is a time of graduation, culmination, and reflection. One encourages you to look forward in anticipation, the other to look back in appreciation.
I don’t know about you, at this time of year, I always feel little bit nostalgic, and a little bit lost. I wish I could don a cap and gown, sit among a field of my ornamented peers, and have someone tell me to “wear sunscreen” as if that’s going to solve all of my problems. I want a guide. A roadmap. A ten-point-plan for finding what I’m meant to do in my “one wild and precious life”.
A few months ago, a friend of mine shared that her college-aged child was hitting an unexpected bump in the road. The major he’d chosen wasn’t turning out to be the right fit, plans were falling apart, and he was back at the drawing board, trying to figure out what to do with his life. At the time she told me this, I was traveling in Italy, sitting on trains and feeling that end-of-the-school-year regret/nostalgia thing I was telling you about. (Apparently, in Portuguese, this emotion is called Saudade, meaning a longing for something lost forever.)
Since this child of hers is also a friend of ours, and since I had an hour alone on a train, I opened a fresh e-mail and started writing. The rest of this newsletter is that e-mail. Consider these words a mini commencement speech, from me to you.
Dear ####,
I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty to send you a few thoughts that pertain to life as a junior in college and all the attendant doubts, questions, opportunities and possibilities that come with the stage you’re in.
I’m currently riding on a train from Rome to Naples in Italy. I am a bit jet lagged and travel weary and I am typing this email on my iPhone, so apologies in advance if there are any typos.
The end of college can feel really disorienting. At the Rome Termini train station there are 24 platforms and trains coming in and out and hoards of people are getting off one train and crisscrossing all over the place, rushing to get to the next place they’re going, trying to find the right train and the right destination. I know you’re not at the end of college yet, but I want you to know that half of the people in your class are going to focus in on exactly what they think they want and they’re going to race to the train and get on the express and they’re going to get halfway to wherever they thought it was they were going and realize that they got on the wrong train. Some people will still want to get to the same destination, but will realize they need to go a different route. Others — I imagine most, in fact — will realize they chose the wrong destination altogether.
Okay, so I’ve exhausted that metaphor. But you get the point. Four years is an arbitrary time frame. A lot of people are going to seem like they know exactly what they want and how to get there. But no one really knows what they’re doing. No one really knows where they’re going.
The very best thing you can do right now is dream. Make a list of a hundred things you love to do. What would you do if no one else’s opinion mattered? Look through the course catalogue again. What classes look fun? You don’t necessarily have to take those classes, but our gut instincts are usually guided by something true. My sophomore summer I worked in Washington D.C. but realized I only ever liked politics because it seemed adjacent to power and power was in the water I drank as a kid at West Point. My junior summer I worked for a lawyer, thinking perhaps I’d go to law school (because that’s lucrative and impressive sounding). But I hated that job and crossed lawyering off my “list.” Senior year, I got on the Teach for America train and came to Nashville because I thought all of that was what I was supposed to do. God used every twist and turn. But it isn’t lost on me that my last semester at Furman, I had a “freebie” credit - and guess what class I took? Creative writing.
I’m saying all this to you now because I wish someone had told me when I was 20/21 that you actually have permission to dream. God built you with so many interests and gifts. There’s no one “right” destination. In the end, you’re not standing on a platform trying to choose a destination. You’re in an ice cream shop, and God, your Heavenly Father, wants you to delight in all he’s created and pick from a variety of good choices.
When I quit teaching, I literally made a list of things I liked without judging my preferences. I wrote down writing, counseling, J.Crew, real estate, interior design, journalism, marketing — maybe a few others. I set up meetings with people who did those jobs. Literally went to coffee with a girl who worked J.Crew retail and asked her all about her job. Same with real estate and writing and counseling. Those meetings always opened up other ideas and ultimately led me to where I am now.
And while enjoying what you do matters, so does practicality. I’m glad I took the TFA job, for no other reason than it helped me get my feet established as an adult, and financed a life in a new city. I had money in the bank and weekends free and a lot of work to do but I also had my own health insurance and paid my own bills and that felt amazing. There is something powerful about just having a job, and letting that be the gateway to take you to the next thing.
SO.
That is my soapbox.
You’re really smart. You really love literature. You love people. You could do just about anything you put your mind to — which can be kind of paralyzing because the options feel overwhelming. Trust yourself. Trust God. He has you and will walk with you no matter which way you turn, always whispering in your ear, this is the way, walk in it.
You received this email because at some point in the past, you expressed interest or signed up for email updates. I hope the words bring a bit of encouragement to keep entering into the (mostly) dark forest we call life.
photo by Brad & Jen.
Recent Favorites
LISTEN: “10 Questions for the Start of Summer” by the Lazy Genius Podcast. After my last newsletter in which I kvetched about the coming Tidal Wave of summer, many of you sent me the link to Kendra Adachi’s podcast, which I have to admit really really helped! She lines up several practical tools and ideas to help bring summer down to size. Highly recommend you take a listen!
READ: Sarah’s Bookshelves Summer Reading Guide. Sarah Dickinson, founder of the awesome podcast Sarah’s Bookshelves, put together an incredible 31-page reading guide to keep your beach-bag stocked all summer. I was thrilled to be asked to recommend a back-list title to add to the mix! To get the guide, you have to subscribe to her content as a patreon supporter at $7/month. But the podcast is free!
BOOK: The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane. “What did all the heartbreak get them if not a little wisdom?” 🌙 It’s going to be difficult to put into words how much I loved this book, but I have to try. When I first read @marybethkeane’s novel “Ask Again, Yes” I felt that I had finally found an author who could write about real relationships without disparaging marriage as a hopeless endeavor. I knew I would be a “ride or die” Mary Beth Keane fan from then on. This, her latest, hit even more closely than I could have predicted. “The Half Moon” is about Malcolm and Jess, a couple who are experiencing the gut-wrenching loss of miscarriage and infertility. Having walked that road with Patrick, I can say without reservation — this book is the best book that I’ve ever read that adequately describes what can happen in a marriage when two people experience the same thing in two radically different ways. Is it possible for love to survive? Is it possible to forgive?
One More Thing…
I’d love to hear from you this week. What is the best graduation advice you ever received? Who spoke at your college graduation? What words of wisdom do you wish you could give or receive this week? Are you on the right train, the wrong train, or standing on the platform, uncertain where to go?
— Claire
I’m printing this letter and saving it for my girls when they’re older. Such great advice for someone in mid-college (or anytime, really). And so true that four years is such an arbitrary number, as if that’s the magic number of years it takes to discover what to do with the rest of your life.
I love this. Even at 65, sometimes I still feel like I'm at Roma Termini!