What I wish I knew when I graduated

On April 3, 2003 I stood outside a dorm room at George Washington University at 2 AM. It was cold and rainy.  

I was in Washington D.C. to interview for a research assistant position so that I could afford to attend graduate school. The school had arranged for me to stay in a dorm room the night before the interview.

 I was waiting for someone to let me in.

I was mad.

I was about to graduate with a 3.93 GPA. I had been on the debate team. I had been a Resident Assistant. I was on the Dean’s list and on many other lists. I was so awesome that people made lists just so they could put my name on them.

I was a big deal in Kirksville, MO, where my undergraduate college was located. 

Why was I having to prove myself all over again - was the world outside college oblivious to my greatness? That scholarship should have been mine already.

As I look back 14 years later, what jumps out is my sense of certitude and entitlement on that April night, as if I’d done the world a favor by finishing my college degree and was owed rewards for my efforts.

The intervening years in the anarchic real world taught me a lot of useful lessons about how people get ahead in life.  

I had my share of disappointments:

• A delayed grad school thesis since my graduate advisor and I did not do our homework about federal regulations,
• A job offer that was almost finalized but then rescinded because of changed circumstances,
• A home I bought before the market crashed leaving me with regrets about money I would have saved had I held out.

Then there were the triumphs:

• A risky career change amid a crashing economy that continues to pay off to this day,
• Jobs that came to me because of the perfect amalgam of luck, networking and ability,
• Promotions I earned because I took on assignments deemed thankless or improbable by my more talented peers,
• I went from almost 200 pounds to 130 pounds, and can run 10 miles six days a week, a feat outside my abilities when I was a young man.

Through all of this, it is easy to wonder: What would have prepared me better for life when I was 21?

First, learn to embrace uncertainty.

One of the greatest gifts of academia is its structure. Pre-announced exams will be relegated to an irreproducible past once you walk out of college.

Human nature predisposes us to seek order in chaos so as to make sense of reality, like when Steve Jobs asked us to connect the dots backwards in his iconic commencement speech in 2005.

 But outcomes are not always ordained by a superstructure of effort and intentions. There is a fair bit of randomness that defies justice and causality.

 Rather than complaining, use your judgment in accepting the things you cannot change and changing the things you cannot accept. Unlike in college, there are often no right or wrong answers.

Second, you are neither as good as you think you are when at your best nor as bad as you think during your worst moments.

 Confidence and doubt exist in an uneasy symbiosis in our own minds and in how others perceive us. Even as you feel conflicted about your own abilities, everyone around you goes through similar motions.

Everyone pretends at some time or another. Adulthood is not that distinct from high school and college in this sense.

 Third, don’t make the mistake I made, that of believing that being among the best in your sandbox makes you the king (or queen) of the beach.

Remember also that political candidates with popular ideas lose elections to less worthy ones, often because what matters in life is not just potential, but your ability to deliver a product worthy of that potential.

Everything you get comes from value you create individually and collectively. It was only when I worked for a small business and when I saw everyone from junior employees to the owner work hard as equals that I realized where my paycheck really came from.

 Your greatness is neither self-evident nor permanent. It has to be proven and maintained.

 Fourth, be open to ideas that go against your understanding of the world.

 Modern communication methods, like formal college education, have made it easier for us to silo ourselves among the like-minded and screen out views that don’t fit our worldview.

 Show an appetite for dissent - in showing and receiving it, challenging that which has remained unchallenged for too long, crossing lines that should never have been drawn or have outlived their usefulness, a doggedness in pursuing the truth even when it remains elusive.

Finally, life not only comes at you fast, but it goes by fast.

Over these 14 years, I visited my family overseas several times. I also noticed that each time, my folks were grayer and frailer than before. You can go home again, but even as the road to get to it remains the same, the tentacles of time encircle that which you left behind a bit tighter.

I was hardly immune to time’s onward march. Each haircut had more white than black falling on the floor once the scissors got to work.

Old friendships faded, and reunions often did not evoke the joy I’d anticipated. Experiences that seemed seminal at the time eventually disappeared into the black hole of memory.

As work weeks seem indistinguishable from each other and anniversaries pile up, it is on you to pursue what really makes you happy. That trip overseas, volunteering at the animal shelter, serving hot meals to the homeless are all worthy and fulfilling, but there will never magically appear that block of time to pursue these. Find time. Make time.

And then trust that somehow, all of this will end up in a life that is purpose-driven even as it finds and redefines its purpose continuously.

A few weeks ago I was back in Washington D.C. for a work-related conference. This time, I stayed at a nice hotel a few blocks from the White House.

One morning, I walked over to the same dorm where I’d stayed 14 years ago. Unlike that rainy night, I had returned on a sun-soaked day.

The dorm and my hotel, on Google maps, were less than a mile apart. In terms of the life experiences that took me from that dorm to that hotel, they were a lifetime apart.