美国某liberal arts学校的毕业典礼上,一位老师曾对即将步入社会或开始新的学途的学生讲过一段话,听过后我无比感动。而后来,我陆陆续续又接触了许多其他前辈对人生道理的领悟,发觉其实讲来讲去都在说一个道理:就是要找到你爱的东西和人。
在这里不多罗嗦了,跟MM 分享这段话,希望共勉:
So when you graduate tomorrow, you are justified in joining the other 17,908 living XXX alumni in declaring that you did indeed graduate from the toughest college in the country.
And I encourage you to continue to strive for excellence in whatever endeavor you end up pursuing. There is nothing so rewarding as a job well done. As but one example, consider the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the subject of a outstanding 1997 documentary by Ken Burns. The film opens with an observation from a fellow architect and rival, 90-year-old Philip Johnson. He says of Wright:
"I hated him of course. But that's only normal when a man is so great - it's a combination of hatred; it's a combination of envy, and contempt, and misunderstanding - all of which gets mixed up with his genius."
Later Johnson describes a project that Frank Lloyd Wright completed in 1936: The great administration building of the S.C. Johnson Company in Racine, Wisconsin. The building includes a great hall fashioned to look like an underwater glade - with a lily-pad ceiling that diffuses natural light throughout the structure. It's a remarkable achievement.
Here's what Johnson says about Frank Lloyd Wright's work:
"What he did was something that's unheard of in the business world. In the business world, you have a lot of offices - they have to be 5 feet apart. They have to be all glass to the outside. And then you get numbers on them and you take an elevator - this is the normal American Program: Just build me an office building. And what did he do - he built a palace; he built a church. He built something that just soared. It's the finest room in the United States today - it still is."
That, my friends, is a job well done.
BUT (and when you talk to a research psychologist, there's always a BUT): The film is a cautionary tale. For, by all accounts, Frank Lloyd Wright's personal life was a disaster, and he was a rather dastardly fellow. Indeed, Ken Burns opens his film with a quote from the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats:
"The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life or of the work, and if it take the second, must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark."
Now Yeats was a bit of a depressive - so here's your mission - here's my charge to you:
Prove him wrong. Prove Yeats wrong.
Sigmund Freud said the definition of a successful individual is one who has achieved meaningful work and meaningful love.
So, my advice to you is really quite simple: Find something and someone to love - and if you have to choose, I'd go with the someone. It might not lead to your becoming the subject of a PBS documentary, but on the other hand, your chances of ending up on a reality TV show will be immensely improved. |