Gwen Ifill
Keys to Living a Good Life
Thank you President Schapiro, Chaplain Spaulding ... Thank you graduates for inviting me today.
A funny thing happened to me on the way to being a grownup.
I was born a preacher’s kid. One of six in all.
Now, two things happen if you’re a preacher's kid. People assume you are either very bad, or very good.
The very bad variety chafes at the restrictions placed on you when you grow up singing in the church choir ... leading all the youth groups ... somehow making it through adolescence under the watchful eye of all of the old ladies in the congregation.
At least, they seemed old to you.
The very bad preachers’ kids soon discover Led Zeppelin and Jay Z ... and basically do everything they can to break free of the limitations that come from growing up in a parsonage and always ... being ... good. Or trying to be.
The very good ones grow up under the same restraints. Only they knew the old ladies by name ... memorized every hymn ... and kept on singing in church choirs — by choice — long after Dad stopped forcing them to.
The good ones get invited to give a lot of Baccalaureate speeches. So here I am today. President Schapiro invited me to come last winter. I was delighted to accept. But it was not until a few weeks ago that I began to wonder whatever I would say to you today.
Chaplain Spaulding sent along a helpful e-mail about the meaning of Baccalaureate. It reminded me that tomorrow’s Commencement ceremony will celebrate knowledge gained ... Today’s is about wisdom to come.
Tomorrow’s ceremony is about tasks accomplished ... Today’s is about challenges ahead ... and the tools you’ll need to cope with them ... the kind of tools you are born with ...
Tomorrow’s ceremony is about giddy relief and sad goodbyes ... Today’s is about new beginnings.
Because leaving Williamstown is about so much more than a degree. It is a rite of passage that should give you the opportunity to ponder more than just the vagaries of the job market.
As you emerge from the blur of graduation parties and finals and caps and gowns and expectation, you would be wise to also use this time to look inside yourself and come to grips with some home truths.
Because if all you take from Williams is a college education, you just may have missed the point.
Here is one truth ... Your experience here at Williams is only the beginning.
You are educated. You are officially among the elite. But you are not complete until you acknowledge that it is what is in your soul that will determine your life’s success ... It requires a measure of clarity that is difficult to come by. Some of us spend our entire lives searching it out.
But today, you occupy a great moment. You are positioned to build on that clarity, to help yourself, your families, your community, your nation, move to the next stage.
During your time here at Williams, the world has changed. Terrorism at home ... wars abroad ... contested presidential elections ... Ozzy Ozbourne on TV ... everything’s been transformed.
When you leave with your diplomas tomorrow, you will be part of a world, of a shared human experience, where the challenges are right in your face ... where the options before you are extraordinarily clear, but the choices murky. I suspect this has already occurred to you. I trust that I am also not the only one to tell you this.
But we are counting on you, the graduates of today, as we never have before ...
To rise to challenge ...
To make honorable choices ...
To apply the lessions you have learned correctly ... as moral human beings who understand there is more to this world than what happens to you.
The world outside our borders now seems like a collection of contradiction ... contradictions and misunderstandings and stubbornly overlapping political and religious conflicts that breed hunger, war and malevolence ... The global information superhighway, once seen only as an avenue of opportunity, is also now fraught with menace ... Our personal sense of security feels more than a little shattered.
But my job here today is not to tell you about what you should fear — you can do that perfectly well on your own ... It is to assure you of the vast and rich opportunity before you ... the joy of living in a vibrant democracy where anyone who is optimistic, hardworking and informed enough ... can change and save the world we live in.
Think of me as a magazine cover ... one of those supermarket glossies that tells you how to lose 50 pounds in 50 days ... Except, that I’m going to give you the five keys to living a good life. Any one of these keys can open a door to a rich, fulfilled and centered life that draws from the moral center within you ... but gives back to the world around you.
Number one: Know you are called to a mission.
With or without a college degree in hand, we are all here for a reason ... it may be to change the world just around us ... it may be to change the world in our hometowns, or for our families ... It may be to fix and explain and investigate and understand ... It may be to be a bridge among diverse communities ... It may be to educate, like the professors and administrators here at Williams who will see you off tomorrow.
But treat it as a mission, a life’s work, something you are called to do. A responsibility, if you will, to care about more than yourself ... to affect the lives of those around you.
Number two: Know you have limitless choices.
You are on the cusp of a great life ... You can choose to build strong families ... raising or helping to raise children, supporting siblings, paying your parents back, honoring your grandparents ... You can leave the world a better place than you found it ...
Step toward those choices — not away from them.
Number three: Resolve today to fix one flawed relationship.
You all know someone you're not speaking to ... some relative who’s been getting on your nerves ... some friend you didn’t say goodbye to today ... some professor you had a fight with ... some acquaintance who never believed in you, never believed you would get to where you are today ...
Step beyond yourself and your resentments. Make the first call. Try to fix that relationship today.
Number four: Resolve to cross a barrier.
That barrier may be race, gender, class ... it may be disability, achievement, expectation.
But use what you know about potential — the potential of rebuilt bridges and healing words — to create new relationships where none existed before.
And Number five: Whatever your core set of beliefs, know that if we are to survive, as a whole, not a fractured collection of black and white, gay and straight, Christian and Jew and Muslim and Buddhist and atheist .... If we are to survive, we must treat each other with respect.
Resist the urge to reduce any debate to only two dimensions. Assume the other guy might have a point ... or at least believes in his point as fervently as you do yours.
And also, this: Imagine at all times that your children — born and unborn — are watching you ... that they are taking cues from the choices you make. Or inheriting those choices. They are counting on you to leave them a world they do not have to rebuild from scratch.
You are all almost certainly on the precipice of great careers. It doesn’t matter whether your are called to the public or private sector ... to teach, or to rule the world ... (Some people say teachers do rule the world, but that’s a speech for another day.)
What does matter is how honorably you do what you choose. That is what will be important in how you live your lives.
I will leave you with the wise words of Dr. Renita Weems, an ordained Protestant minister and teacher who specializes in women’s spirituality and wholeness. On her website, somethingwithin.com, she writes this month about opportunities.
Is it possible to miss the sound of opportunity knocking, she asks?
Yes, she answers.
“You can’t seize what you can’t sense,” she writes. “To be ready within is to be willing to trust God for something new. Something inside has to be ready for a change. Sure, some opportunities come around once in a lifetime, but God isn’t like us. God gives us repeated chances to grow, change, and go to the next level. We miss some opportunities, for sure, but in time other ones come along.”
So savor the opportunities ahead. Take chances. Look into your souls. And do what you do for honorable reasons. Once you have done all that, your Williams degree will seem almost beside the point. Almost.
Thank you ... and God speed.
June 7, 2003