The History of This Generation

Feraco Myth/Sci-Fi and SFHP 24 January 2013

For almost a generation, psychologists around the world have been engaged in a spirited debate over a question that most of us would consider to have been settled years ago. The question is this: is there such a thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Not every hockey player born in January ends up playing at the professional level. Only some do – the innately talented ones. Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

Exhibit A in the talent argument is a study done in the early 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. With the help of the Academy’s professors, they divided the school’s violinists into three groups. In the first group were the stars, the students with the potential to become world-class soloists. In the second were those judged to be merely “good.” In the third were students who were unlikely to ever play professionally and who intended to be music teachers in the public school system. All of the violinists were then asked the same question: over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?

Everyone from all three groups started playing at roughly the same age, around five years old. In those first few years, everyone practiced roughly the same amount, about two or three hours a week. But when the students were around the age of eight, real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing – that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better – well over thirty hours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.

Ericsson and his colleagues then compared amateur pianists with professional pianists. The same pattern emerged. The amateurs never practiced more than about three hours a week over the course of their childhood, and by the age of twenty they had totaled two thousand hours of practice. The professionals, on the other hand, steadily increased their practice time every year, until by the age of twenty they, like the violinists, had reached ten thousand hours.

The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals,” musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any “grinds,” people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks. Their research suggests that once a musician had enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.

“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert – in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

This is true even of people we think of as prodigies. Mozart, for example, famously started writing music at six. But, writes the psychologist Michael Howe in his book Genius Explained, “by the standards of mature composers, Mozart’s early works are not outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of Wolfgang’s childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for piano and orchestra, are largely arrangements of works by other composers. Of those concertos that only contain music original to Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K.271) was not composed until he was twenty-one: by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years.” The music critic Harold Schonberg goes further: Mozart, he argues, actually “developed late,” since he didn’t produce his greatest work until he had been composing for more than twenty years.

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

Here is the explanation for what was so puzzling about the rosters of the Czech and Canadian national sports teams. There was practically no one on those teams born after September 1, which doesn’t seem to make any sense. You’d think that there should be a fair number of Czech hockey or soccer prodigies born late in the year who are so talented that they eventually make their way into the top tier as young adults, despite their birth dates.

But to Ericsson and those who argue against the primacy of talent, that isn’t surprising at all. That late-born prodigy doesn’t get chosen for the all-star team as an eight-year-old because he’s too small. So he doesn’t get the extra practice. And without that extra practice, he has no chance at hitting ten thousand hours by the time the professional hockey teams start looking for players. And without ten thousand hours under his belt, there is no way he can ever master the skills necessary to play at the top level. Even Mozart – the greatest musical prodigy of all time – couldn’t hit his stride until he had his ten thousand hours in. Practice isn’t just the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

The other interesting thing about that ten thousand hours, of course, is that ten thousand hours is an of time. It’s all but impossible to reach that number all by yourself by the time you’re a young adult. You have to have parents who encourage and support you. You can’t be poor, because if you have to hold down a part-time job on the side to help make ends meet, there won’t be time left in the day to practice enough. In fact, most people can reach that number only if they get into some kind of special program – like a hockey all-star squad – or if they get some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to put in those hours.

enormous amount Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

Here’s a question for you.

If James Naismith never invents basketball…does Kobe Bryant lead an irrelevant life?

First, some backstory for those who don’t follow basketball as obsessively as the rest of us.

Kobe’s father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, played professional basketball for years, even continuing his career in Italy after leaving the NBA.

When he moved across the sea, his young son moved with him.

One of Gladwell’s principal arguments in Outliers is that success results from a combination of innate talent and exceptional preparation, with a greater emphasis on the latter.

Having watched the NBA since I was young enough to collect trading cards, I’ve had the chance to watch literally hundreds of prospects fail once they reach the professional ranks.

These are players with talent, the proverbial big men on campus.

How is it possible for them to come up short?

Now, given what we’ve started with today, you might expect me to say that it’s a matter of hard work, the toil one’s willing to undergo in order to be great.

While that’s undoubtedly part of it, it’s also undoubtedly incorrect as a full explanation.

After all, with minor exceptions (shot-clock length, quarters vs. halves, three-point arc), college basketball and professional basketball are the same sport.

It’s not like hiring someone who’s just finished his or her studies to do a job; by and large, amateur athletes (and I use the term “amateur” very, very loosely) have been doing what they’re being hired to do for years already.

Except they haven’t.

It is hard – hard – to be a professional athlete, and not simply because your competition is better.

Think about the mindset a young NBA player has to shift into: for his entire life, he’s been the city.

best player on his team, at his school, in his

Just making it is an honor, seeing as only sixty players get drafted every year – that’s sixty players from the entire world, mind you. (Talk about competition!)

On the surface, that’s positive reinforcement – you’re one of the best people in the world at this particular thing! Welcome to the club!

But what happens with most rookies?

They don’t play.

If they do play, they rarely start.

The crowds get bigger, the travel gets harder, the stakes get higher, the distractions pile up…and in the meantime, the thing they’ve devoted their lives to doing well is now the thing they’re being denied the chance to do.

It’s truly a weird sensation: to be one of the five hundred best people alive at something, yet to find yourself rooted to a seat on the bench all the same.

And more often than not, young players never find their way out of that situation, never figure out how to adjust their approaches, never figure out how to tailor their games to contribute as role players instead of as alpha dogs, never figure out how to cope with being one of the worst on the team instead of being the best.

It’s the same game, but it’s a new world – and one of our great failings as athletic developers is that, all too often, we teach our players the skills they need to play our games, but not the skills they need to cope with everything else.

By going with his father, Kobe learned to cope with the pressures associated with fame at a young age, learned to absorb the nuances of other cultures and languages, learned to be flexible; he grew up on hardwood, surrounded by sneaker squeaks and the smell of sweat.

In other words, Kobe was prepared for a larger stage, the stage that shakes the confidence of everyone who ascends to it, long before the time came for him to take it.

And when the opportunity came for him to rise, he seized it.

But if Joe Bryant never plays professional basketball, Kobe never goes overseas.

If James Naismith never invents basketball in the first place, professional basketball never exists as a viable career.

How differently, one wonders, does Joe raise his son if he pursues a different profession?

How does Kobe’s life change when he’s not handed the same opportunities, when he’s spending all of those on-the-court hours somewhere else with someone doing something else?

else

Look back to 1892.

James Naismith invents the sport because he decides to throw balls into peach baskets one day.

The game was so roughly sketched that Naismith hadn’t even decided to cut the bottom out of the basket yet; the defense needed to climb up and fetch the ball out of the basket every time it gave up points (which, you have to admit, is a special kind of humiliation).

That’s where Kobe’s future starts, nearly a century before he was born: it lies rooted in those ancient seeds, in the genius of a dead Canadian he’d never meet.

And what if Naismith didn’t invent the game that year?

What if, on the day he should have made that first shot, he chose to spend time with friends instead?

What if he decided to sit and sleep under the shade of a Georgian peach tree?

What if he went to work and stayed late; what if he kept going to work and kept staying late?

What if he never invented his beautiful game?

Now, if James Naismith never invents basketball, maybe Kobe Bryant becomes an awesome soccer player or something.

But Kobe Bryant was born on August 23rd.

If we’re being realistic, we’ll admit that he probably would’ve slipped through the cracks.

In fact, I’m willing to bet that if James Naismith never invents basketball, we never learn Kobe Bryant’s name.

And I ask the question again: what would Kobe be doing if that game had never been invented?

If nobody felt a thrill at the sight of someone throwing a ball into a hole ten feet in the sky?

If nobody decided it would be a good idea to pay someone to do just that, to handsomely financially compensate someone for that bizarre skill?

Kobe’s not stupid, and he clearly works hard.

Maybe he follows the money and just becomes some white-collar worker in a skyscraper somewhere instead.

Maybe he becomes a nameless person you stand next to on a bus – a tall nameless person, to be sure (although who says he’s born to the same mother if Famous Athlete Joe never plays?), but someone you never speak to because he’s just an Ordinary, Anonymous, Unremarkable Guy. (We’re all OAUGs at one point or another.)

Maybe he just becomes a guy who passes through life without stopping to live it.

And maybe the world never knows what it’s missing.

Maybe the world never stops to wonder about any of the infinite possibilities that pass unrealized every day when people are too overwhelmed, busy, hurried, lazy, or scared to form dreams and chase them, when people are too poor, hungry, and exhausted to chase them without help they’ll never receive and lessons they’re never offered, and when people never know they have opportunities to succeed because no one noticed them, no one had faith in them, and no one fought for them.

How many Kobes have we missed over the numberless centuries?

How many Kobes have faded into obsolescence like so many cracked stone tablets or scorched pages of poetry?

How many Kobes have lived and died without recognizing the incredible depths of their own potential?

How many Kobes have led ordinary lives, lived as men instead of as legends, obeyed limits they were taught were theirs without testing them, never walking on air just because they never knew they could?

-----

Your life takes the shape you make, but your ability to shape it depends on what you can access.

The choices we make, the opportunities we seize, the connections we form – all of these “shapers” depend on us, our circumstances, and those around us, as well as how the three interact.

Kobe Bryant walks on the sky because he can – but he can because he learned the game from an expert, grew up in the company of professionals, and trained perfectly for the moment he assumed all along would be his.

Take those away – any of them – and there’s no telling what happens.

The lesson, of course, is to resist the easy assumption that you already know what you should be, and that you already know your limits.

For all you know, your career hasn’t been invented, or your calling hasn’t been established.

Perhaps your opportunity already awaits, waiting for you to outstrip predecessors you may not even know.

(Without Naismith, Kobe never flies; without Gates, Allen, and Jobs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page never invent Google; without Pasteur, Jonas Salk never invents a polio vaccine.)

But the polio vaccine wasn’t developed by uncaring hands, Google wasn’t an accident, and every shot that leaves Kobe’s hands is directed at a specific target.

All of the accomplishments I just mentioned are the byproduct of people reaching for greatness, but also staying true to themselves.

We’ve spoken so often about how our morals and actions influence our happiness, about how our goals give us purpose – bulls-eyes for our souls’ arrows.

I introduced that simple concept – that you have to chase what you want because life is too short for passivity – and reinforced it with every piece of content I chose for our curriculum.

I tried to make you see the world as Proust did after seeing Chardin’s painting, or as WALL-E sees it when he tosses the ring and keeps the box – to see how much beauty lies hidden in plain view in the world around you.

And with that in mind, I wanted to take some time today, on our last day, to urge those of you who dream – and those of you who go through the motions – to stop, look around, and realize what surrounds you.

That landscape is undoubtedly mixed – a cloud for every ray of sunshine, a struggling economy facing every job seeker and college applicant, a rapidly approaching expiration date for many of the bonds you’ve forged and valued over the years.

But the point is not to get lost in negatives; rather, I’ve tried to teach you how to think about yourself in a new way, to cope with negatives more healthily and enjoy the myriad positives life offers more thoroughly.

In short, I’ve spent this semester trying to help you lead what Socrates, who urged those who’d move the world to move themselves, treasured most – a balanced, examined life. -----

When my senior classes concluded during my first year at Arcadia High, I offered my original students ten pieces of advice about how to handle graduation, departure, and new beginnings.

I’ve looked back at them each year and felt they were worth sharing again; I did the same this year, and felt the same way.

These aren’t just any ten pieces of advice; they were my best attempt, five years removed from high school graduation, to look back at what I knew when I was 18, and what I wished someone had told me at the time.

So, now that I’m five years removed from college graduation, here they are; you can feel free to take or leave any of these, to highlight or reject any nugget you please, or to take the whole shebang and tack it to your dorm wall.

1: Don’t take it personally if people worry about you – because we will worry.

I was really lucky as a kid: my parents gave me a lot of latitude, leeway, responsibility, trust, what have-you.

They didn’t have a lot of strict rules about where I could go or what I could do, probably because they sensed – correctly – that the “bad” held no allure for me.

As a result, I was that rarest of teenaged creatures: one who wasn’t tasked with checking in routinely to explain my whereabouts, let alone let anyone know in advance what sort of adventure I’d go seeking that day. (I didn’t even own a cellphone.)

At most, I’d call my mother if I planned to sleep at a friend’s house, but there would be weeks where I just never went home – I’d use another house as a home base, keep taking care of everything, and head back whenever I needed to.

So I remember feeling really upset – irrationally so – when my mother suddenly wanted me to spell my plans out for her in advance during my second senior semester.

I interpreted her concern as doubt, and took that doubt personally – Why are you worried? Are you implying I can’t handle this? Do you know how many plates I’m spinning every day? Do you know how rarely I screw up compared to the other kids? Have I ever screwed up? Have I ever let you down? Have I ever broken your trust? How can you doubt me???

That reaction is immature on about eight different levels, but the point is not to highlight my flawed/selfish reasoning: the point is that I felt that way from then on forward.

I wasn’t ever openly jerkish to my parents, but I was definitely shorter, more clipped, easier to exasperate, once I started feeling that way.

On the precipice of adulthood, I wanted everyone to take me seriously.

I thought I’d earned that respect by living as I had, establishing the track record that I’d established.

And – I didn’t realize this until later – I wanted everyone to believe in me so I wouldn’t have any reason to doubt myself.

I mean, if my own parents were suddenly starting to worry about my readiness for what lay ahead…it made me a little afraid.

I repurposed that fear as indignation, offense, irritation.

I had absolutely no compassion for my mother’s concern, no interest in where it was coming from or why it was manifesting now.

I was so fixated on my own life, on the problems I was fighting to keep at bay and the obligations I was struggling to honor, that I never – never – thought about how my parents felt to see their only son grow up.

So this is what I wish someone had told my younger self:

You’re probably ready for most of what’s ahead.

Nobody’s ready for all of it, but your coping skills improve with age and experience – you’ll never be as bad at dealing with the unanticipated again.

But the transition period’s going to be intense, no matter how ready you are.

Even if you’re planning to stay at home, it’s not the same – you’re still making that final push into independent adulthood.

And watching someone make that push? It can be terrifying.

You can believe your child is accomplished, capable, kind, and courageous – my mother did – and still be seized with worry.

So people will worry…but it’s a symptom of their affection for you, not their disrespect.

After all, the way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost…and they are realizing, some of them more slowly than others, that they’re losing you, that you’re no longer in the “lungs walking around outside your body” mode – that you’re heading off to parts unknown, into the teeth of circumstances they cannot control.

So don’t resent them for caring about you, and don’t snap at them if it seems like they’re pushing too hard.

Appreciate it for what it is.

Recognize love, even when it’s difficult to see.

Remember that you have friends who are shooting for some pretty tremendous heights, and you want kids someday: you’ll be on the other side of these exchanges sooner than you think.

And when that happens?

You’ll pray you’ll still have the words to offer guidance.

You’ll pray they’ll hear what you’re trying to say.

And you’ll pray for sympathy.

2: Don’t dwell on the past so much that you forget to live in the present.

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I like to look back at my memories from time to time; I figure that I’ll have a better sense of where I’m going if I remember where I’m from.

But I spent too much time looking backwards when I was a freshman in college.

I really loved the place where I grew up, and I had a great time in high school.

I was reluctant to leave, and didn’t allow myself to make a clean break for a variety of reasons.

But my decision to cling to my recent past didn’t really help me…it only delayed my adjustment to life in a place where I didn’t know a single person.

I was just about the last person to leave my hometown, which meant I got to watch my friends move away first, one after the other.

That sucked.

When I got to Los Angeles, I was not prepared for the cultural shift, the change of pace, the hum that still rumbles in the background of everything at all hours of the night.

Mainly, I wasn’t prepared to be without my people.

I was definitely the kid who spent the first couple of weeks in my dorm, still talking to old friends on AIM – I know, I know, ancient technology, don’t remind me – instead of making new ones.

Big mistake, and I was lucky to avoid dragging it out too long.

I eventually started making friends in the dorm and getting involved in the usual freshman antics; I just wish I’d done so sooner.

I wish someone had told me, in a way I could’ve understood, that the past was the past, and that my friends would come of age in different ways in different places.

It was a difficult realization, but it was one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned.

I’m still friends with some of the people I was closest to during high school; they aren’t the “same” people they used to be, but neither am I, and that’s OK.

So love the people who matter to you here, especially while you’re still here.

You’ll meet people who will remind you of them, who share a habit or two.

But you’ll never find replacements for these people.

Instead, you’ll find people to add to that pantheon.

Your heart feels full right now, overstuffed, like you can’t possibly care about anyone you’re going to meet as much as these friends.

But the heart obeys its own physics.

You have more space for people than you think.

So while you’re still in high school, don’t detach from people because they aren’t going where you’re going.

And for God’s sake, don’t start holding back because you’re afraid that your friendships will fade, and you don’t want to spend time on something doomed – that merely ensures they will, in fact, fade.

Enjoy the time that the universe gave you to spend with these folks.

Don’t wish for more, and certainly don’t wish for less: this is what you were meant to have with them.

Don’t waste any of it.

And when you get to a new place, welcome the people you meet…for the quest to shatter one’s loneliness doesn’t end when you leave home.

3: Age matters less than insight, wisdom, or courage.

You’ll acquire each with time; honestly, you’ve already acquired your fair share of all three.

You’re crossing the subtle line from childhood to adulthood, but there’s nothing magical about getting older.

You experience more, which is nice, but those experiences usually end up adding texture and nuances to views you already hold; it’s rarer for someone to end up completely different from their teenaged selves than it is for someone to simply refine the persona we already know.

That’s all wisdom is, usually – the refinement of old conviction.

So, at the risk of offending Henri Etienne, I submit that youth, at times, does know.

(Youth also does stupid things. So does age. C’est la vie.

)

You’re about to learn a lot about yourself in an extremely compressed period of time.

You’ll need to build mental discipline, and be willing to view yourself honestly, but – and I can’t stress this enough – this is one of the best opportunities for growth you’ll ever have.

It’s important to remember that you don’t actually get to stay in school very long – certainly not long enough for you to go through a period of feeling like your views don’t have merit simply because you’re young.

I had no idea that I’d react that way once I started taking college classes.

Yet there I was, surrounded by seniors, juniors, and sophomores in my classes and on my teams, and I felt a great deal of pressure – mostly self-imposed – to lie low, to stay quiet until age lent my views some badly-needed credibility.

I wish someone had told me to be unafraid to speak my mind, even if I was in a class of older, more experienced students.

Have confidence in your contributions.

Don’t wait for some imaginary tipping point where you can suddenly start being taken seriously.

That’s like waiting for a moment that will define you.

Quit waiting and define yourself instead.

4: Push yourself.

Here’s the thing: I can see a lot of value in the ten-thousand-hours idea.

I think that the time you spend involved with something matters greatly – that it is, in fact, the first step one can take towards substantial accomplishment.

But it’s been my experience that simply asking someone to devote a lot of time and energy to something only works if they’re spending that time passionately.

The thing that strikes me about that selection from Outliers intent to get better.” that opened this speech was its definition of violin practice: “purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the

How many times have we made the mistake of confusing time spent and effort devoted for actual improvement?

I can remember the hours I spent finishing homework for AP classes in high school, and it’s relatively rare that any of those nights stand out positively in my memory.

I did the work to finish it, because good students finished their work; because I liked defining myself as a good student; because I liked getting good grades.

But did I honestly approach that calculus class hoping to improve my math skills?

Did I approach my physics class hoping to learn something I could use?

Did I approach my government class with the idea that something we’d cover could conceivably influence my voting behavior?

If I’m being honest: did I approach my English class seeking to learn how to write better?

When I read Joyce, Dostoevsky, Homer – was I studying how they’d done what they did, was I curious about why they’d written what they had…or was I simply writing what I could and saying what was expected and finishing what was needed?

Don’t get me wrong: I had some good teachers, and I certainly learned a lot during school.

But the program of study I built for myself wasn’t really one of my own design, or at least wasn’t tailored for my specific needs, desires, or curiosities.

It was a manifestation of a passionless checklist – take this class, participate in this sport, head to this or that meeting – written by someone who didn’t understand the checklist’s purpose and hadn’t paid a lot of attention to where the completed checklist was supposed to lead.

I was involved in things because other people were, or because I felt this vague need to do what I was supposed to do.

That schedule kept me busy, but I made it lack usefulness.

I’m the only one to blame for that.

I saw it happen with others in high school, and see it happen with students here all the time – the obsessive need to fill, fill, fill the schedule, without bothering to derive something useful from the experience.

Sure, you’re in _____ Club – but what the heck does that mean?

Why should I be impressed?

Why did you enjoy that?

We’re really good at offering options for study and pursuit, and less skilled at choosing among them.

Just loading up to load up…well, that’s not pushing yourself.

That’s punishing yourself.

Here’s the thing, though: I, like many of you, recognized my error at the time, as it was happening.

I chose to perpetuate something I knew was broken: Sure, I’ll take all these classes now, and then I’ll focus on what I really want to study in college.

Look at how eager I was to get those ten thousand hours under my belt!

So what became of me?

I checked off requirements relentlessly until I’d graduated and realized I’d taken literally one course voluntarily – one course that wasn’t just an attempt to hit a gen-ed prerequisite, finish my insanely overburdened minor (most majors required fewer classes!), or make progress in my equally overburdened major (I really didn’t want, let alone need, three classes about Modernist Lit, but there I was, signing up year after year).

Ick.

Outliers almost makes greatness seem unappealing, doesn’t it?

I mean, if you know at a young age that the thing you love happens to be the thing you’re good at, then pour yourself into it, by all means. (The rest of us will curse you for your good luck.)

But I wish someone had taken my younger self aside and asked him what the point of it all was – why he was learning what he was learning, taking what he was taking, doing what he was doing…why he was so eager to commit to ten thousand hours of something, really.

Because he wasn’t chasing greatness.

I think he was just trying to run away from failure.

And I’ve always been good at running.

So this may seem like a split-brained message to an eighteen-year-old, but here it is:

Make the most of your education, but don’t be so eager to commit to the ten thousand hours.

When I tell you, “Push yourself,” I’m not strictly talking about academics. (Although it is a pretty good idea to make the most out of an expensive education.)

I mean that you should be willing to pick up new hobbies and discover new interests without constantly worrying about how they’ll affect the rest of your life.

I mentioned that society quarantines this period of your lives in order to encourage you to grow.

You have most of your adult capabilities, but you haven’t inherited all of the responsibilities yet.

Increased capability + decreased responsibility = more possibility ( ^ Awesome)

Don’t waste the license society’s given you; don’t abuse the chance, just as I didn’t abuse the freedom my parents granted me.

Instead, try the things you’ve always wanted to try – sing in a choir, get politically involved, host a radio show, write a novel in a month, etc.

And try them for a reason.

When you find something worth devoting ten thousand hours to, then you can be a good insect and specialize.

Until then, there’s no reason not to seek new adventures; if you decide something isn’t for you, you can stop.

No one will think less of you for having tried in the first place, because everyone is trying to figure this stuff out!

And since you may pass through this life but once…well, no time for “it might have beens.”

Do not wait for a reason to be happy: make yourself worthy of it instead.

5. Don’t get caught up in the little things.

The little intrigues and scandals that are hallmarks of high school life don’t go away immediately, but appearance begins to matter less than substance sooner than you think.

And the substance of people…that’ll throw you.

Here’s the thing about colleges that never occurred to my younger self: the people there are way weirder than you think they’ll be.

Those weirdnesses are impossible to hide when you are literally around people twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; no one can keep up the pretense of normalcy that long.

Some bother with it longer than others, but by the middle of the first semester, most everyone’s oddities have been laid bare.

I needed someone to tell the younger version of me to panic less about people noticing his quirks and hang-ups and the like.

Most people either won’t care, are too distracted by their own efforts to seem normal, or will actually find you more interesting if you seem to be a crow left of the murder.

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for: just about everyone who continues their schooling has something(s) they’re truly, deeply, passionately nerdy about.

That’s how you get the football player-slash-environmental activist-slash-literacy-tutor-slash takes-Guitar-Hero-too-seriously types.

That’s how the senior year version of myself went to a cookout at a track coach’s house on a college visit, ran into a 6’4”, 280-lb, heavily tattooed and pierced mountain of a junior, a man who looked every inch the evil henchman in an action movie… ….who then offered a slack-jawed me an expertly prepared cut of chicken before abandoning his grill to play with the coach’s daughter and puppy, closed the night by leading a political discussion amongst the throwers, and went on to watch over me during my awkward first year at the school.

Like I said, appearance matters less than substance.

We all have our pet obsessions, and the dorms in particular are like zoos – beautiful, bizarre amalgams of hobbies and pursuits, all thrown together in a melting pot where some of the stuff doesn’t completely melt.

So if you think someone’s a little weird – they are.

If you hear someone did something that was a little off – they probably did.

And someday, gloriously, you will learn to stop caring reflexively.

Gossip will always have its place; it’s just a weapon whose power gets sapped a bit.

If someone has a good heart, if you enjoy someone’s company, if you’ll be a better person if they’re part of your life, don’t be afraid to reach out and make a friend.

There’s nothing in the rulebook that says you can’t be friendly or decent to other people – and if this makes someone dislike you, that person probably isn’t someone you’ll want to spend time with.

6: Have fun, but be careful.

You’ll have opportunities to explore possibilities that simply weren’t available to you as a high school student.

Always remember to think things through, because every action has consequences.

It’s hard to think through every decision, to consistently take the long view when the short term seems so attractive or fun – but it’s time to start doing so.

We do not, after all, always recognize the good.

People will frequently make stupid decisions around you, and we’ve already seen how profoundly outside circumstances can shape the choices one makes.

Just remember: you’re not a robot, and you don’t need to automatically follow someone you don’t agree with.

Don’t live recklessly just because you understand the reality that you will “fall down” at some point – simply make the commitment now to be a resilient and adaptable person when circumstances call for you to step up.

Yes, a man may only be as faithful as his options – but he’s the one who chooses those options.

Choose well.

7: Everybody – everybody – hurts sometimes.

It’s hard to shrug it off when someone doesn’t treat you well.

But we often aren’t aware of what other people are going through, don’t recognize when someone’s barely hanging on.

Don’t be quick to judge others; someone who snaps at you may be a jerk, but he or she may also be reacting to something else.

Remember, it’s impossible to live a life that never feels the bite of sadness, loss, failure, or disappointment.

And you’ll go through it yourself.

God doesn’t look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas: He looks for scars.

So you’ll know bruises; you’ll know blessings.

You may form religions around some pretty fallible gods and goddesses.

It’s part of growing, but it’s also part of living; every single one of your parents understands what I just listed.

So don’t surrender when pain or sadness descend; remember your own strength (and Kierkegaard), and remain faithful to yourself.

Don’t give in to worry, doubt, self distrust, fear, or despair.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

And have compassion for those around you who might be going through it too.

Caring may be a reflex, but it dulls pretty easily.

Exercise it always.

8: Greet the world – the academic, cultural, and interpersonal ones you’re entering – with an open mind and an open heart.

A willingness to listen, learn, and analyze is one of the greatest qualities a man or woman can possess.

You have the right to listen to people and ideas and decide whether you agree.

Don’t simply accept or reject things based on what you’ve heard, or even what you were taught; take advantage of your gifts and learn for yourself.

Challenge.

Stand.

Deliver.

9: Always remember the wonderful things.

It’s so easy to forget everything that’s good in the world, and everything that’s good in your life.

Every so often, I get so caught up in obsessing over drudgery that I forget to see the forest for the trees.

Instead of worrying about the crack in my windshield, I should be grateful I can afford insurance for my car.

Instead of worrying about the way others see my friends and family, I should be grateful I have people I can call my own.

And when I realize that I’ve taken these wonderful things for granted, I try not to feel too guilty for the rest of the day; I concentrate instead on being thankful that I’ve realized what I’ve done in time to appreciate the things I have anew.

Those are good days.

These are good days!

So don’t feel guilty – be happy.

10: You are your own person.

You choose your friends, your classes, your food, your habits.

You’re getting a fresh start, with all that implies.

Take advantage of it.

Establish yourself intelligently; don’t make a bunch of commitments you can’t honor or decisions you can’t live down.

Live a life you can be proud of, whether it’s a quiet life of greatness or a more obvious one; you’re calling the shots, you’re flipping your coins, and that responsibility is an awesome and wonderful gift.

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I don’t want you to flip coins like it’s going out of style, or decide to flip the coin when you’re at an 8 and the choices are 9 and 3.

(At some point, you hold the coin you have while you work to better your odds!)

I used the coin-flip game for the same reason I asked you to study characters who went to extremes (Siddhartha, Gilgamesh, Tom, Dante, Carl, Jake, Beowulf, Jan, Macbeth, etc.): because they’re case studies in how to pursue balance in life, and in how individual people try to recover from mistakes they and those around them make.

I hope this class has helped you learn how to do both – to balance and recover, to live and to learn.

I hope you learned that human connections matter – that we are indeed tied in a single garment of destiny, and that whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

I hope you can recognize your dreams more clearly and pursue them more readily.

I hope you’ve found your own ways to live for ends more durable than individual fame, and that you have enough of an impact on the world around you to warrant a similarly eloquent epitaph someday.

I hope this class has exceeded your great expectations, whatever they may have been; that it taught you that you should always expect something from an experience, even a high school class; and that you should make these expectations clear, in every relationship you form and every experience you enjoy.

I hope that the philosophies and ideas we’ve grappled with challenged and moved you, and that the characters we studied and the works we read helped you to see human beings differently – perhaps even understand them better.

I hope you’ve also gained a greater appreciation for outside perspectives – perhaps even to the point that you’ve found it easier to analyze issues from multiple angles.

But above all else, I hope I’ve made it easier for you to understand yourself.

By that, I mean I hope you can understand who you are, what you want, why you want what you want (and are who you are), and how you plan to move forward with your life once you leave my class.

I hope you keep searching, and never stop learning, because life is an impossibly beautiful experience.

I hope you end up exceeding me, in so many ways; I’ve told you that before, but I’m not sure you understand how deeply I mean it.

(If not today, you will, someday!)

And I hope you make your own opportunities – that if you’re a Kobe without a Naismith…

you invent your game yourself.

For a man will find a means of doing what he really wishes to do.

You can do anything in this world if you listen to yourselves honestly;

if you take the text of your childhoods and supply the commentary of your futures;

if you recognize the infinite promise in the lives that so many people, out of love, have tried to provide for you;

if you study the Great Mysteries – all of them – into which we are born;

if you remember Picasso’s wisdom – instead of trying to be the soldier who becomes a general, you become the best version of yourself possible;

you can then make Maughan’s words a mission statement:

I can do anything in this world if I am prepared to take the consequences.

Write the history of this generation, in bold strokes and big letters.

Use what I’ve given you.

Nothing could make me happier, or prouder, than that.

Today, tomorrow, forever…do the things that’ll make me, your parents, and yourselves proud.

To the children of mine who are coming back: I can’t wait to get started.

To the children of mine who leave for good today: I will miss you, and profoundly so.

But every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

And your new beginning is a wonderful one indeed.

So, one last time… I am me.

You are here.

And it is today.

And you have a chance to become any type of person you want.

Who will you decide to be?

And what will you attempt to do?

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