Jeffrey Yasskin’s blog

As I announced a few weeks ago, I was asked to give the student speech at my graduation. Here’s what I wound up saying. You’ll notice that the punctuation and capitalization isn’t always correct. That’s because I used the grammar to give me cues on how to say it. Thank you to everyone who helped me write it, even or especially if I seemed to resist your ideas. It wouldn’t have been nearly this good without you.

So. We’re graduating. Congratulations, that really is a big deal. We’re done with the journeys that have defined each of our lives up till now. Here we are, at the destination. And we see another path stretching off in front of us, and a sign saying “real world that way”. Some of us will take that path, and some will walk a while on the other paths marked “grad school” or “med school” or “law school”, but eventually, we’ll all step off into the real world. So congratulations. We’ve made it to the Beginning. We’ve reached another road. And whether you’re aiming to be an astronaut, sell shoes, or work in an art gallery, that road ahead could be bumpy.

When I was trying to decide what to talk about today, I thought about my friends who have already begun their walk in the “real world,” and all the bumps they’ve had on the way. And I decided to talk about those bumps: see if I could make some sort of map to help all of us avoid them. Now I obviously haven’t walked this road myself yet. My map is cobbled together from observing friends and reading other people’s writings. So take it as a jumping off point, and keep your own eyes open.

In the real world, we’ll spend a third of our waking hours at a job, making money. And those of you who aren’t stopping off at grad school have, I’m sure, like me, spent a lot of time deciding on the first one. Some of us will be getting the jobs we thought and hoped we’d be getting. And some of us will be getting other, “transitional” jobs. Whatever job You get, give it an honest chance: maybe it’ll fit you better than the one you thought you wanted. But, in case you find that your job isn’t what you actually want to be doing, make sure you’re always able to leave it and find another one. Don’t let your job trap you. I’ve identified three kinds of traps that I plan to guard against. “Three” is a suspiciously nice number to put in a speech, so you’ll probably discover that I’ve missed some. Be on your guard against those too.

The first trap I’ll call “throwing good time after bad”. It’s been shown that if you spend a lot of time pursuing something, in this case a particular career, you’re likely to overestimate its value to you. All of us have spent around four years so far on whatever career we’ve picked out, with perhaps more in store if you visit grad school on the way. That’s a whole lot of time, so we’re all going to be overestimating the value of our chosen careers. A lot of people in the wrong jobs excuse staying in them by complaining that they don’t want to have wasted all that time in college, or all that time they’ve already spent in the job. First, you haven’t wasted the time: you used it to discover that a certain job wasn’t for you. That’s valuable knowledge. Second, why should you waste any More time in a lousy job when you could be out there finding one you actually like? Now, this is not to say that you should jump ship at the first sign of trouble: many jobs do take some time to get used to. But if you try for a time and you still can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, go find another tunnel, even if you’ve walked a long way in this one.

The next trap I’ll call the money trap. Capitalism rewards advertisers who convince lots of people to buy their products. It rewards them a LOT. So there are a lot of very good advertisers trying to convince you that buying this car will make you popular; this pizza heater will make your life easier; this TV will be more fun. In short, you shouldn’t be content with what you have, but if you buy more THINGS, you’ll be happy. This is a lie. But it’s a really Good lie. Immediately after you buy something, you will feel a bit happier. Part of that’s you avoiding cognitive dissonance. You spent money on this gadget, you don’t want to believe it was a waste. And then you’ll get used to having it around and won’t be any happier than before you got it. The advertisers don’t mind, as then you’ll come back to pay them for your next fix. When we fall into this cycle, we quickly start believing that money can buy happiness. We start getting addicted to our salaries. Which suits our employers fine since, One, they can get us to do really painful tasks by promising us a little more money, and Two, changing jobs tends to involve a temporary pay cut, so our addiction to money becomes an addiction to the current boss. We can fight this by remembering how happy we’ve been living on maybe 1000 dollars a month in college. We don’t need all of the stuff we see in ads, and we don’t need the money to buy it. We can be just as happy, maybe happier, living a simple life. And we’ll have the freedom to get GOOD jobs, not just ones that pay well.

Finally, we come to the trap of jobs that drain your energy. If you wind up in a job you don’t like, probably one that frustrates you all day, you may find yourself coming home to veg out in front of the TV, or going to the bars to drown the pain, or playing video games, every night. I know I do it. This is fine occasionally, but it’s not fulfilling, and it won’t get you a better job. I’ve seen this trap, in particular, getting my friends; and the pain of watching it, is a big reason I chose this as the topic of my talk today. If you’re in a job you don’t like, work on finding one you do. That seems obvious, but it’s way too easy to simply look for the short-term fix. So get off your bum and DO something. Take night classes for that degree your dream job requires. Paint for your portfolio so they’ll hire you to do art. Volunteer, to build your resume. You’ll be making progress toward a job you actually enjoy, and you’ll feel better about yourself.

In fact, if your dream job takes a lot of preparation, you may even be planning for a period like this. Try not to get a job you hate, but one you’re just unsatisfied with is probably fine. Your corporate overlords will try to get you to use all your energy for their benefit. Resist that: your energy is for you. Take your breaks and vacations. Maybe don’t work full-time. Do Whatever it Takes to make sure that when you get home you have enough energy left to pursue your dreams.

As you go out into the world, find a job you like enough to do well. Which is the same as a job that makes you happy. Be aware of the traps you can fall into: don’t stick with a bad job, just because you’ve stuck with it too long already; don’t let them convince you that you need money to buy happiness; and keep some energy for yourself. If in a few years, you sit up and realize that you’re unhappy, I hope you can get some use out of this speech. And always follow your dreams.

Congratulations again, graduates. I’ll see you in the real world.

Everyone seemed to like it, or at least, the people who didn’t are keeping quiet. Ave Hermes.