After you’ve written your fourth or fifth graduation story there’s really nowhere else to go; it gets harder and harder to cough up something that isn’t a carbon copy of the previous year. But it wasn’t just the repetition making things a slog—every year I found the boilerplate about finding your calling and loving your job and changing the world a little more dishonest and thus more cruel.
Even for privileged Ivy Leaguers the reality is that most will never find a calling, love their job, or make any appreciable impact beyond their immediate backyards. Like most mortals, the majority are bound to find the working world frustrating, dysfunctional, and full of colleagues they might not necessarily appreciate. …
Grads should absolutely aim high and hope for the best, but in the context of hardheaded realism about the world as it is.
[No one invites you back when you offer that advice. Of course, no one has invited me to address graduates in the first place. They probably know what I’d say — forget about “making a difference” through social-justice activism and make a difference instead through commitment to your family, your faith community, and your neighbors. — Ed]
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