Happiness is a mindset of appreciation -- happiness is what happens NOW, when you appreciate what you have.

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. 

사랑하라, 인생에서 좋은 것은 그것뿐이다. 

- George Sand

Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World

By Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger

Imagine waking up every morning believing that your actions can make a significant change in the world.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. 

-–Victor E. Frankl

That which we witness, we are forever changed by, and once witnessed we can never go back. 

-–Angeles Arrien

Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel’s immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad new sights, smells and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way. –Ralph Crawshaw

P66

...minga was basically a call to action. Roughly translated, it means a community coming together to work for the benefit of all…language reflects culture. The more words you have for something, the more important it is.

P69

Whether our school days begin tomorrow or are long behind us, we need to remember that millions of children in developing countries will never see the inside of a classroom. In North America many of us are fortunate to have the opportunity to learn, but the quality of education that students receive can greatly vary between school. Quality education is a right, both for students here and in the rest of our global community – it’s time to make it a priority.

-There are twice as many shopping centers in the United States as there are secondary schools.

-Almost 80% of undergraduate students in the U.S. work 30 hours a week while attending school, yet the average student who borrowed money to finance state or private college will have median debt of $15,500.

-Almost one in five of the world’s children in not attending school

P70

Adopt a village. Come together with others in your workplace, faith group, or school to adopt a community and build a school overseas. For as little as $5000, you can build a classroom and transform the lives of children for generations to come. Through Leaders Today’s international volunteer trips, you can even help in the construction process.

P72

…my mother was a quiet hero whose greatest achievements were never obvious to the outside world….I have learned to trust in the love and the example of others, that we are made for interdependence. I have also learned that we are made different, capable of our own special miracles, not in order to be separated but to know of our need for each other.

--Archbishop Desmond Tutu

P74

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

--Marcel Proust

P75

Dalai Lama advises us all to “practice compassion in everyday life. Though we may find differences in philosophical views and rites, the essential message of all religions is very much the same. They all advocate love, compassion, and forgiveness.”

P76

P82

Creating an Awareness of We

- Gratitude

- Empathy

- A redefinition of happiness

- A redefinition of community

P85

No one is ever too old or too young to begin the move from Me to We.

P93

It is our job to make life meaningful; no one can do that for us.

--Richard Gere

P94

If Me to We is so wonderful, why hasn’t everyone already embraced this new approach to life? Research tells us that the answer is both incredibly complex and astonishingly simple: fear…A lot of us have grown up with the belief that if we don’t look out for ourselves, no one else will. We worry that notions of community are idealistic tales from the past, irrelevant in our cut-throat, mile-a-minute world. We’re concerned that if we think in terms of We, then Me will suffer. The good news is that nothing could be farther from the truth.

P122

For Allison Sander it wasn’t so much a question of overcoming adversity or banishing apathy but of trying to make up her mind about what to do with her life…Her shyness had melted away, replaced by confidence and the firm conviction that she would be part of the solution to the problems she had witnessed overseas. Allison had learned that finding happiness in day-to-day life starts from within, through converting the quiet compassion she felt for others into real action.

P136

What you put out comes back; it’s the third law of motion. So we’re always rewarded in kind according to the depth of our deeds.

--Oprah Winfrey

P137

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

--Melody Beattie

P140

“As long as you have your life, you have everything.”

--Hurricane Katrina survivor

P146

…practicing gratitude involves training your mind to notice, savor, and remember the positive aspects of life. It doesn’t mean deluding yourself, certainly. It simply means making a conscious choice to abandon fears and insecurities and instead to develop a sense of wonder and appreciation for the world. We then see circumstances in terms of the opportunities they present rather than the obstacles they create.

P166

…the first and most obvious lesson is that you need to know about a situation before you can do something about it. This means refusing to turn a blind eye to injustice, just as Gitta did, and learning all you can about it.

P169

Tips for Nurturing Empathy in Children

- Discuss feelings

- Discipline appropriately

- Praise and label positive actions

- Use role models

- Set a good example

- Provide a moral compass

P183

Aristotle’s definition of Hedonic vs. Eudaemonic happiness

Hedonic – happiness of the senses (it is as fleeting as it is intense)

Eudaemonic – happiness of the soul (it is found in activities that are aligned with our fundamental human needs for meaning, connection, and personal growth, and it brings a sense of engagement, contentment, and fulfillment)

P184

…these trinkets were not helping to bring back the best memories of our travels—the people we met, the friendships we formed, the good laughs, stories, and experiences we enjoyed together.

P186

…he saw that as bad as he thought he had it, somebody always had it worse…a poverty-stricken little boy wasn’t just surviving, he was aliving. He didn’t have much to share, but he was sharing. He was doing what he could with what he had.

P189

What we do should reflect what we believe.

P191

“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” This is apath of love: “Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire…The salvation of man in through love and in love.”

--Viktor Frankl

 The Me to We philosophy is essentially a choice of how we live our lives.  We have the freedom to choose how we respond to the worst of human situations, as we do to the minor problems of everyday life.

While love may be an overused word, it is clearly an underused action.

P192

“To laugh much; to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one’s self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social conditionl to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

P222

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choice that we make, and those choices are ultimately our responsibility.”

--Eleanor Roosevelt

P223

Most of us spend much of our lives on autopilot, guided by the habits that we have developed in the past.

P223

Living Me to We challenges us to take control of our decisions and our lives. It involves not only making an effort to become more aware of our everyday choices and the impact they have but also to actively make decisions that promote well-being, both for ourselves and the larger community. It encourages us to stand up for our highest ideals, whether the decision in question is small and seemingly mundane or large and potentially life-altering.

P223

Electricity is something that most of us in the developed world take for granted.

P226

What is my vision for an ideal world?

If we are to craft a world that is just, compassionate, sustainable, and free of violence and hate, we must take every opportunity to make decisions that reflect our vision.

P243

“Love never measures. It just gives.”

Mother Teresa

P250

Making the right choice isn’t always easy. As you begin to make Me to We decisions, you may find yourself challenged to move outside of your comfort zone.

P259

Take a minute or two to think about what you love to do or what interests you. Understanding yourself well enough to know what lights you up is the first step toward discovering your gifts…opportunities are limited only by your imagination!

P260

If there is one message to share about the Me to We movement, it’s that it can’t afford to wait for a distant “ideal” time and place. Now is the ideal time to begin living Me to We, and wherever you are now, you’re in the ideal place—personally, socially, physically. 

CH1) Working the land

Roberto Acuna, Farmworker

P14

All of a sudden I’d be rudely awakened by a broken carrot in my back. That would bust your whole dream apart and you’d work for awhile and come back daydreaming.

P18

I didn't quit because I was afraid of them, but because they were trying to make me into a mean man.

P19

I began to see how everything was so wrong. When growers can have an intricate watering system to irrigate their crops but can’t have running water inside the houses of the workers. Veterinarians tend to the needs of domestic animals, but they can’t have medical care for the workers. They can have subsidies for the growers but they can’t have a adequate unemployment compensation for the workers. They treat him like a farm implement. In fact they treat their implements better and their domestic animals better. They have heat and insulated barns for the animals but the workers live in beat up shacks with no heat at all.

P22

If we have proper compensation we wouldn't have to be working seventeen hours a days and following the crops. We could stay in one area and it would give us roots. Being a migrant, it tears the family apart. You get in debt. You leave the area penniless. The children are the ones hurt the most. They go to school three months in one place, then on to another. No sooner do they make friends, they are uprooted. Right here your childhood is taken away. So when they grow up, they’re looking for this childhood they have lost. 

CH2) Pecking order

Bill Talcott, Organizer

P31

If they’re going to save themselves, they’re going to have to do it themselves. I have some skills that can help them.

P33

Christian brotherhood is enlightened self-interest. Most sins committed on poor people are by people who've come to help them.

P38

I work all the way from two in the morning until two the next morning seven days a week. I'm not a martyr. I'm one of the few people who was lucky in life to find out what he really wanted to do. I feel sorry for all the people who aren't doing what they want to do. Their lives are hell. I think everybody ought to quit their job and do what they want. You've got one life. How on earth can you blow that doing something you hate?

Roberta Victor, Hooker

P43

Youth is the premium.

Barbara Terwilliger, Idleness

P50

It can be splendid not to work for a while, because it changes the rhythm – you can reflect on what you've done. There’s no feeling of being indolent. I like being by myself for long periods of time and do not need an occupation. After two months though, it doesn't work for me. I begin to feel the need for a raison d’etre.

P51

About work and idleness…

You raise the subject of guilt.

I did?

I have come to some conclusions after having been free economically from the necessity of work. A great poet can make love and idleness fructify into poetry, a beautiful occupation. He wouldn't think of calling it work.

Work has a pejorative sound. It shouldn't I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about work. But so much of what we call work is dehumanizing and brutalizing.

I've done typing as a young girl. I've worked in places where the office was like a factory. A bell rang and that was time for a ten-minute coffee break. It was horrifying.

Still, most people are better off—their sanity is maintained in anything that gives their life some structure. I disliked the working conditions and I disliked the regimentation, but I enjoyed the process of typing.

P52

I really feel work is gorgeous. It’s the only thing you can depend on in life. You can’t depend on love. Oh, love is quite ephemeral. Work has a dignity you can count on.

Work has to be a game in order for it to be well-done. You have to be able to play in it, to compete with yourself. You push yourself to your limits in order to enjoy it. There’s quite a wonderful rhythm you can find yourself involved in, in the process of any kind of work.

P55

Even there, the process—being part of something, making something happen, was important. That’s the difference between being alive and being dead. Everyone needs to feel they have a place in the world. It would be unbearable not to. I don’t like to feel superfluous. One needs to be needed. I'm saying being idle and leisured, doing nothing, is tragic and disgraceful. Everyone must have an occupation. Love doesn't suffice. It doesn't fill up enough hours. I don’t mean work must be activity for activity’s sake I don’t mean obsessive, empty moving around. I mean creating something new. But idleness is an evil. I don’t think man can maintain his balance or sanity in idleness. Human beings must work to create some coherence. You do it only through work and through love, and you can only count on work.

CH3) Footwork

Dolores Dante, Waitress

P74

Everyone says all waitresses have broken homes. What they don’t realize is when people have broken homes they need to make money fast, and do this work. They don’t have broken homes because they’re waitresses.

P77

When somebody says to me, “you’re great, how come you’re just a waitress?” Just a waitress. I’d say, “why, don’t you think you deserve to be served by me?” it’s implying that he’s not worthy, not that I'm not worthy. It makes me irate. I don’t feel lowly at all. I myself feel sure. I don’t want to change the job. I love it.

P82

I don’t give anything away. I just give myself. Informers will manufacture things in order to make their job worthwhile. They’re not sure of themselves as workers. There’s always someone who wants your station, who would be pretender to the crown. In life there is always someone who wants somebody’s job.

P86

I tell everyone I'm a waitress and I'm proud. If a nurse gives service, I say, “you’re a professional.” Whatever you do, be professional. I always compliment people.

P89

If you come out in anger at things that were done to you, it would only make you feel cheapened. Really, I've been keeping it to myself. But of late, I’m beginning to spew it out. It’s almost as though I sensed my body and soul had had quite enough.

CH4) In the spotlight

Bud Freeman, Jazz Musician

P99

I get up about noon. I would only consider myself outside the norm because of the way other people live. They’re constantly reminding me I'm abnormal. I could never bear to live the dull lives that most people live, locked up in offices. I live in absolute freedom. I do what I do because I want to do it. What’s wrong with making a living doing something interesting? I wouldn't work for anybody. I'm working for me. Oddly enough, jazz is a music that came out of the black man’s oppression, yet it allows for great freedom of expression, perhaps more than any other art form. The jazz man is expressing freedom in every note he plays. We can only please the audience doing what we do. We have to please ourselves first.

P104

Real talent takes a long time to mature, to learn how to bring what character you have into sound, into your playing. Not the instrument, but the style of music you’re trying to create should be an extension of you. And this takes a whole life.

CH5) Behind the desk

CH6) Appearance

Sam Mature, Barber

P131

I’ll tell ya, by tipping that way it made me feel like a beggar.  A doctor, you don’t give him a tip. He’s a professional man. You go to the dentist, you don’t give him a tip because he fixed your tooth. Well a barber is a professional man too, so I don’t think you should tip him.

CH7) Cleaning up

Nick Salerno, Garbageman

P153

People ask what I do, I say, I drive a garbage truck for the city. They call you G-man or, “How’s business, picking up?” Just the standard…  or sanitary engineer. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I put in my eight hours. We make a pretty good salary. I feel I earn my money. I can go anywhere I want. I conduct myself as a gentleman any place I go. My wife is happy, this is the big thing. She doesn't look down at me.

They made a crack to my children in school. My kids would just love to see me do something else. I tell’m, “Honey, this is a good job. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re not stealin’ the money. You have everything you need.” I don’t like my salary compared to anyone else’s. I don’t like to hear that we’re makin’ more than a school teacher. A school teacher should get more money, but don’t take it away from em. 

CH8) Second chance

Nick Lindsay, Carpenter/poet

P166

I don’t think there’s less pride in craftsmanship. I don’t know about pride. Do you take pride in embracing a woman? You don’t take pride in that. You take delight in it. There may be less delight. If you can build a house cheap and really get it to a man that needs it, that’s kind of a social satisfaction for you. At the same time, you wish you could have done a fancier job, a more unique kind of a job.

But every once in a while there’s stuff that comes in on you. All of a sudden something falls into place. Suppose you’re driving an eight-penny galvanized fish in nail into this siding. Your whole universe is rolled onto the head of that nail. Each lick is sufficient to justify your life. You say, “Okay, I'm not trying to get this nail out of the way so I can get onto something important. There’s nothing more important. It’s right there.” And it goes…pow! It’s not getting that nail in that’s in your mind. It’s hitting it…hitting it square, hitting it straight. Getting it now. That one lick.

CH9) Looking after each other (from cradle to grave)

Elmer Ruiz, Gravedigger

P192

I enjoy it very much, especially in the summer. I don’t think any job inside a factory or an office is so nice. You have the air all day and it’s just beautiful. The smell of grass when it’s cut, it’s just FANTASTIC. Winter goes so fast, sometimes you just don’t feel it.

When I finish my work here, I just don’t remember my work. I like music so much that I have lots more time listen’n to music or play’n. That’s where I spend my time. 

Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson

By Mitch Albom

P35

“Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don’t buy it. Create your own. Most people can’t do it.”

P40

“Love wins. Love always wins.”

P43

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

P52

“The most important thing in life is learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

P57

“I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life […]”

“How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.”

P61

“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too—even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

P71

Koppel imagined the two men together one day, one unable to speak, the other unable to hear. What would that be like?

“We will hold hands,” Morrie said. “And there’ll be a lot of love passing between us. Ted, we've had thirty-five years of friendship. You don’t need speech or hearing to feel that.”

P91

If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’

P92

“Sure, people would come visit, friends, associates, but it’s not the same as having someone who will not leave. It’s not the same as having someone who will not leave. It’s not the same as having someone whom you know has an eye on you, is watching you the whole time.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them. It’s what I missed so much when my mother died—what I call your ‘spiritual security’—knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.”

Raising a family was one of those issues on my little list—things you want to get right before it’s too late.

P93

There is no experience like having children. That’s all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.

P118

“Mitch, I embrace aging.”

Embrace it?

“It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Ageing is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”

Yes, I said, but if ageing were so valuable, why do people always say, “Oh, if I were young again.” You never hear people say, “I wish I were sixty-five.”

He smiled. “You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.

P120

“Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight.

“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.”

P120

“The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old, I'm a five-year-old, I'm a thirty-seven –year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?”

P127

“…finding a meaningful life…Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. You notice there’s nothing in there about a salary.”

P128

“Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.”

P134

“…Do you ever hear my voice sometimes when you’re back home? When you’re all alone?...”

Yes, I admitted.

“Then you will not forget me after I'm gone. Think of my voice and I’ll be there.”

Think of your voice.

“And if you want to cry a little, it’s okay.”

P135

I came to love the way Morrie lit up when I entered the room. He did this for many people, I know, but it was his special talent to make each visitor feel that the smile was unique.

When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world.

“I believe in being fully present,” Morrie said. “That means you should be with the person you’re with…”

P148

In this culture, it’s so important to find a loving relationship with someone because so much of the culture does not give you that. But the poor kids today, either they’re too selfish to take part in a real loving relationship, or they rush into marriage and then six months later, they get divorced. They don’t know what they want in a partner. They don’t know who they are themselves—so how can they know who they’re marrying?

P149

“There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?”

Yes?

“Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”

P154

“People are only mean when they’re threatened and that’s what our culture does. That’s what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture. Which is why I don’t buy into it.”

P155

“Here is what I mean by building your own little subculture. I don’t mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don’t go around naked, for example. I don’t run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.”

“Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now—not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry—there is nothing innately embarrassing or shaming about them. “

“It’s the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It’s just what our culture would have you believe. Don’t believe it.”

P156

Why didn't you move to some place not as selfish as America?

“Every society has its own problems. The way to do it, I think, isn't to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture. Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our short-sightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.”

P157

“In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right? But here’s the secret: in between, we need others as well.”

P163

“Be compassionate and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place. Love each other or die.”

P164

“There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?”

P166

“it’s not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn't help you when you get to where I am…Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I'm getting. Not everyone is as lucky.”

P174

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

P175

“…Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can’t turn away from them. As I see it, they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, awareness. And if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues. They should have been all along.”

P178

“In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own. “

“You've had these special times with your brother, and you no longer have what you had with him. You want them back. You never want them to stop. But that’s part of being human. Stop, renew, stop, renew.”

P190

None of us can undo what we've done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye. 

--

2007년 싱가포르 교환학생이었을 때 사서 읽은 책. 

침대에 누워서 보다가 책 사이에 끼워뒀던 장미꽃잎들이 내 얼굴 위로 떨어졌다. 언제 이런걸 끼워뒀었지? 

그때는 이 책을 읽고나서 어떤 생각을 했었는지 궁금하다. 그때 쓴 글은 어디에 있나? 

고등학교 때 수영이랑 정성들여 썼던 우리의 교환 일기장은 도대체 어디로 갔지?

우리의 추억과 그림들이 담겨있는 그 일기장.. 아무리 찾아도 없다.

내 어린 날의 기억 한 조각이 사라져버린 것 같아 슬프다.  

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?_r=0

George Saunders’s Advice to Graduates

It’s long past graduation season, but we recently learned that George Saunders delivered the convocation speech at Syracuse University for the class of 2013, and George was kind enough to send it our way and allow us to reprint it here. The speech touches on some of the moments in his life and larger themes (in his life and work) that George spoke about in the profile we ran back in January — the need for kindness and all the things working against our actually achieving it, the risk in focusing too much on “success,” the trouble with swimming in a river full of monkey feces.

Damon Winter/The New York TimesGeorge Saunders

The entire speech, graduation season or not, is well worth reading, and is included below.

Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

And I intend to respect that tradition.

Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.

So: What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?”  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked?  And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?  Not so much.  Do I regret the occasional humiliation?  Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl?  No.  I don’t even regret that.

But here’s something I do regret:

In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class.  In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.”  ELLEN was small, shy.  She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.  When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” – that sort of thing).  I could see this hurt her.  I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear.  After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth.  At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.”  And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.

And then – they moved.  That was it.  No tragedy, no big final hazing.

One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.

End of story.

Now, why do I regret that?  Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it?  Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her.  I never said an unkind word to her.  In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.

But still.  It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. 

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly.  Reservedly.  Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope:  Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

Now, the million-dollar question:  What’s our problem?  Why aren’t we kinder?

Here’s what I think:

Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.

So, the second million-dollar question:  How might we DO this?  How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?

Well, yes, good question.

Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.

So let me just say this.  There are ways.  You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.  Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend;  establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition – recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.

Because kindness, it turns out, is hard – it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include…well, everything.

One thing in our favor:  some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age.  It might be a simple matter of attrition:  as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really.  We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality.  We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be.  We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now).  Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving.  I think this is true.  The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.  YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.   If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment.  You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.  That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today.  One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.

Congratulations, by the way.

When young, we’re anxious – understandably – to find out if we’ve got what it takes.  Can we succeed?  Can we build a viable life for ourselves?  But you – in particular you, of this generation – may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition.  You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can….

And this is actually O.K.  If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously – as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers.  We have to do that, to be our best selves.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable.  “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up.  Speed it along.  Start right now.  There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness.  But there’s also a cure.  So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.

And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been.  I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.

Congratulations, Class of 2013.

I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.

How to Find Fulfilling Work

By Roman Krznaric

"The thought once occurred to me that if one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, one at which the most fearsome murderer would tremble, shrinking from it in advance, call one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning."

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky

P5 I could see its future so clearly laid out before me and it filled me with dread.

>> I had this moment and I clearly remember it. I was sitting in a meeting one day, looked around the room, and thought to myself, 'I would hate myself if that was me in 5 years.' 

P10 …it is possible to find work that is life-enhancing, that broadens our horizons and makes us feel more human.

P12 …looking for a job that is big enough for their spirit, something more than a ‘day job’ whose main function is to pay the bills….bringing your career and who you are into closer alignment.

P13 meaning, flow, and freedom
1) understand the sources of our confusions and fears about leaving our old jobs behind us and embarking on a new career.

2) reject the myth that there is a single, perfect job out there waiting for us to discover it, and instead identify our ‘multiple selves’ – a range of potential careers that might suit the different sides of our character.

3) rather than meticulously planning then taking action, we should act first and reflect later, doing experimental projects that test-run our various selves in the real world.

P19 
1) we are not psychologically equipped to deal with the expansion of choice in recent history

2) we are burdened by our own pasts, especially the legacy of our early educational choices

3) popular science of personality testing rarely helps us pinpoint fulfilling careers

P24 …one effect of having so many options is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation…even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options…we can always imagine having made a better choice, so we will regret the decision we did make, and thus feel unhappy about it.

P26
1) try to limit our options

2) satisfice more and maximize less – instead of aiming to buy the perfect pair of jeans, we should buy a pair that is ‘good enough’. By lowering our expectations, we can avoid much of the angst and time-wasting that arises from having excessive choice.

P27
The way that education can lock us into careers, or at least substantially direct the route we travel, would not be so problematic if we were excellent judges of our future interests and characters. But we are not…people so often find themselves stuck in careers that do not suit their personalities, ideals or expectations.

P29 Similarly, you will be reluctant to give up a legal career to which you've dedicated a decade of your life, even if you find it unfulfilling. The sunk costs are just too high to ignore.

>> My graduate education guided me into a career path that suited me well; everyone thought so and I also believed it was perfect for me because I was so good at what I was doing. Yet, I was not happy. I felt like I was becoming this dull, boring person and I did not like it. I saw myself lose the vibrant spark I used to have and I wanted it back. It was not an easy decision to pull myself out of it because I invested 3 years of my life (and money), but I wanted out before I was too deep in it.

P30 Two forms of regret

1) the regret of abandoning a career into which we've put years of time, energy and emotion

2) the possibility of looking back on our lives in old age and regretting that we didn't leave a job that was not offering us fulfilment.

As time goes on, the choice we didn't make looms larger and larger in our minds, and the thought ‘if only I had…’ casts a dark shadow over our lives.

>> Did/do I have the regret of abandoning a career in museum? Yes, especially when I see my friends and classmates working in places like MoMA or Met. I feel like that could've been me or I could've done that. But would I have been happy? No, I don't think so.  

P38 Do we want to follow the glittering allure of money and status, or to be guided in our search for meaning by our values, talents, and passions?

P45 what really seems to matter to people is the quality of their relationships in the workplace: both ‘respect’ and ‘the people you work with’ head up the list.

P46 …most of us desire to be a member of an ‘inner ring’ of esteemed or important people, but we ‘will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching’ since there are always more rings within it. The lesson may the simple one that we should not be so concerned about what other people think about us.

P48 The lesson is that in our quest for fulfilling work, we should seek a job that offers not just good status prospects, but good respect prospects. That may mean avoiding large bureaucratic organizations where individual efforts are barely acknowledged, and finding a workplace where employees feel treated as unique human beings and part of a community of equals.

P51 Our time here is short and we must be willing to take risks and make fools of ourselves, but never give up hope of a better world.

P67 Personal Job Advertisement
1) tell the world who you are and what you care about in life

2) put down your talents

3) your passions

4) the core values and causes you believe in

5) personal qualities

>> 1) I care about people

>> 2) Fluent in Korean and English, organized, fast learner, adapts quickly, creative, gets along with kids very well

>> 3) reading, writing, travelling 

>> 4) children's rights and education

>> 5) patient, easy-going, personable, positive

P72 act now and reflect later.

P74 …we hate losing twice as much as we love winning, whether at the gambling table or when considering career change.

P78 We learn who we are by testing reality, not by looking inside...Reflection best comes later, when we have some momentum and when there is something new to reflect on.

P81 One of the greatest obstacles to change is that we get trapped by the strictures of our social circle and peers…our world view is a psychological straitjacket that restricts us from pursuing new possibilities.

P83 Most people find new jobs through personal contacts rather than official channels, and that shifting career requires developing new social networks.

P85 
Then indecision brings its own delays,

And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 

–Goethe

P87 Flow

We are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The action is valuable in itself, not a means to an end. In a typical flow experience, we feel totally engages in the present, and future and past tend to fade away.

P88 It most commonly occurs when we are using our skills to do a task that is challenging, but not so hard that we fear failing…Flow is also enhanced when we are being creative and learning new skills, when we can see the immediate impact of our actions, and when we have clearly defined goals.

P95
I don’t want to join the rat race.

Not be enslaved by machines, bureaucracies, boredom, ugliness.

I don’t want to be a moron, robot, commuter.

I don’t want to become a fragment of a person.

I want to do my own thing.

I want to live (relatively) simply.

I want to deal with people, not masks.

People matter. Nature matters. Beauty matters. Wholeness matters.

I want to be able to care. 

–E.F. Schumacher

P118 Instead of asking ‘Can women have it all?, the real question should be ‘How can parents support each other so they can both have some of it all?’

P124 In the affluent nations of the modern world, there is no need for most of us to be captive slaves, to ‘be enslaved by machines, bureaucracies, boredom, ugliness’, as Schumacher put it. We have the ability, the obligation, to escape the stone by carving out new possibilities in our lives.

P127 ‘Without work, all life goes rotten, but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies,’ wrote Albert Camus.

P130 ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.’ –Nietzsche.

‘What man actually needs is not some tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.’ –Victor Frankl

P131 Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? –Marie Curie

P132 Vocations are grown, and grown into, rather than found…goal quietly crept up on her during years of sustained scientific research…vocation crystallizes slowly, almost without us realizing it.

P136 …in the Odes of the Roman poet Horace: carpe diem, he advised, seize the day – before time runs out on you. In the Rabbinical tradition there is a saying attributed to the sage Hillel the Elder: ‘And if not now, when?

P136 don’t forget the power of written word: try writing your own obituary. Imagine yourself in the future, looking back over your life, and write the story of what you did, or hoped you had done.

P137 …life is there to be lived with passion, that risks are there to be taken, the day is there to be seized. To do otherwise is a disservice to life itself. –Zorba the Greek

돌아왔다. 

여전히 '무엇'에 대한 답은 없다. 하지만 '어떻게'는 알 것 같다. 

그걸로 됐다. That'll do and I'll live. 

:)