Below is the text of my final graduation address as President of Newberry College. My apologies for any grammar errors as was a rough outline of my address. Congratulations again to the Class of 2010!
Sincerely,
Mick
2010 Graduation Address – May 8, 2010, President Mick Zais
Thank you Chairman Walker for those most kind words. I’m sorry my parents are no longer alive to have heard them. My father would have been proud. And my mother would have believed it.
I’m going to address my remarks today to our graduating seniors.
As brand new college graduates, you are about to embark on a new road, to travel to a new destination, to arrive in an unknown land.
As you embark on this odyssey, I’d like to offer three principles that I believe will make the journey less difficult. These principles, if lived out in your daily lives, will provide greater happiness and a more fulfilling life.
The first principle is this: “For you to be successful in your work, you must love what you do.”
This means following your heart as you choose your careers. You will spend 40 to 60 hours a week working. If you’re not enjoying it, at some level, there is no way that you can be successful. I’m not saying that every minute of work should be a party and that you’ll skip around your worksite humming a cheerful tune. But, at the end of the day you should experience a feeling of satisfaction and have a sense of accomplishment from what you have done and what you are doing.
The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, expressed it this way: “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
Before Leno, for 30 years the host of the Tonight Show was Johnny Carson. Carson wrote, “Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”
Colleen Barrett is one of our country’s most successful corporate women. She’s president emeritus and former chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines. Barrett observed that, “Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.”
Or, as the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Now, well-meaning friends and family will offer advice about where, or how, your life should unfold. They will recommend what professions you should go into and what careers you should pursue. They mean well. They truly do. But they cannot see into your heart. They cannot understand what stokes the flames of your passion, what excites and energizes you. If you can find that activity, that job, that profession, that you love doing, you are almost guaranteed success.
The second principle I would leave with you is this: “There are no great achievements without great effort.”
Mediocrity is easy. That’s why it’s so common. Success is hard-won. Even the brightest students must study long hours to rise to the top of their class. Even the most gifted musicians, practice day after day after day to become masters of their craft. Even the most talented athletes work incredibly hard to be the best. Even the most creative writers work unceasingly to improve their craft. And even the most able businesspersons are successful because they outwork their competition. In every field, talent is commonplace. However, the willingness to do the work, to log the hours, to expend the time and energy to be exceptional, is truly rare.
If you want to be successful in your career, if you want to win that job that others are competing for, if you want to be one of the best at what you do, you must be prepared to do more than others. And this means long hours. This is true whether your next stop along your journey is graduate school, teaching or coaching, the military, working in the business world, or any other endeavor.
This principle has been expressed many ways:
According to the great American inventor, Thomas Edison, “Genius is one percent inspiration, and 99% perspiration.” He added, “I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident. They came by work.”
Well, “What about luck?” you might ask. “Aren’t some people successful simply because they’re lucky?” My father was a great believer in luck. In Vietnam, as commanding general of the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, his call-sign was Lucky Eagle. He used to tell me frequently, “I believe in luck. And I’ve found that the harder I work the luckier I get.”
Writing before the birth of Christ, another ancient Greek, Horace, noted, “Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.”
You see, some things about the human condition do not change, even over thousands of years. If you hope to be successful in your profession, not only must you love your job, but you’re going to have to work at it very, very hard.
Finally, a fact of life which forms the basis for the third principle. This fact of life is the opening paragraph of Scott Peck’s inspirational book, The Road Less Traveled. Peck writes, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
You will encounter many setbacks throughout your life. You won’t be accepted into the graduate program that you want. You will not be offered the job that you hoped for. You’ll get the job of your dreams but find your boss is impossible to work for. Your heart will be broken by someone you love. Some marriages will end in betrayal and divorce. Your children will turn out not to be the perfect embodiments of yourself that you hoped you would be. You won’t receive the promotion that you feel you deserve. These are but some of the disappointments that you may experience. Expect them. It’s part of life.
But based on this fact of life, here’s the final principle: “An abiding faith in God will equip you to deal with life’s difficulties.”
Faith will give you strength in time of trouble. It will provide support when you are stressed. Faith will help you carry on in the face of failure. Faith will give you confidence in your future.
Faith is not something that happens to you. It’s a decision you make. It’s not a feeling. It’s an act of will. You get to choose what you believe and then you get to choose to act accordingly.
Those with a strong faith, who are active in the community of their church, who have studied and understand the theological foundations of the of their belief, will have a support system and a belief system strong enough to withstand the vagaries of chance and calamities of misfortune which life will, inexorably, deliver.
In summary, these are the three things that I suggest as you leave Newberry College and begin a new life:
First, find work that you love. This will not necessarily be easy. Some of you will get the job of your dreams only to discover that you actually don’t enjoy it. You’ll have to try a lot of different things. You’ll learn by trial and error. And error can be a good teacher.
The second suggestion. Work hard at what you do. There’s no substitute for hard work. The harder you work, the more you will accomplish. The more you accomplish, the greater your self-respect. The more you respect yourself, the happier you will be.
Finally, practice your faith actively. Don’t wait for some mystical religious experience to overcome you. Go to church, get involved, study the Scriptures. If you do, you’ll be much better prepared to deal with the difficulties that are an inevitably part of life.
Good luck on your new journey. I hope these principles help you along the way.
God bless you, God bless Newberry College, and God bless America.
