It’s that time of year again, as graduation ceremonies commence at schools all across the country.

Back in 1975, I was a junior in high school. My middle brother, Dave, a senior, was at the top of his class. He was destined to be valedictorian.

But toward the end of his senior year, there was an unexpected complication. Since we’d started high school in Connecticut and were finishing it in Indiana, a few classes didn’t match up.

To be more specific: Gym. Dave was short a credit for physical education.

Two years earlier, the day we started our years at Carmel High, I remember sitting in the principal’s office with my brother. The principal, Mr. Graham, eagerly questioned Dave, “Goodness you’re tall – do you play basketball?”

Welcome to Indiana!

I think Dave and I both shrunk two inches that moment. No, we weren’t into sports. Dave was a musician, a composer. I was into drama and vocal music. We were both what you might call eggheads.

And so when phys-ed came back to haunt him, Dave was determined to hold his place in line as valedictorian.

In a nutshell, he had to take gym with the sophomores for the final six weeks of school. And he had to get an “A” or he would lose his place as valedictorian.

It was a nervous six weeks, but he made it.

With his permission, here’s Dave’s Valedictorian Address:

If someone were to ask us what we want to do with our lives, many of us would say that we want to become engineers, some would say doctors, others businessmen. If we were then told that we hadn’t answered the question correctly, we would probably be puzzled.

There is a very common subtle misconception abroad in the world, and anyone who answers the question of what he is going to do with his life by naming his future profession is suffering from that misconception. He will be bitterly disappointed later in life when he finds that it is an illusion. The illusion I am referring to is the idea that adult life is the process of getting a job and making money.

Of course, none of us believes this totally. We all realize that there is more to life than working and bringing home paychecks. However, if we even think that getting a good job is more “necessary” than, say, cultivating a hobby, we are still suffering from the illusion. Man is composed of body, mind and soul, and all three of these are equally important.

Are we to define something which supports the body as more “necessary” than something which nourishes the mind or spirit?

Our bodies need to survive, of course, but so do our minds, and so do our souls. By “mind” I do not mean the ability to think. This is only a tool. By mind, I mean curiosity, and the desire to learn about things which will not necessarily profit one in a material way. I would say that a ditch-digger who reads a book or two a month and makes furniture for pleasure has a better mind than a corporate president who has risen to the top of his profession but has no interests outside the office. Giving up a hobby because one’s job leaves no time for it is putting the body’s needs ahead of the mind’s and is just as stupid as reading novels all day and wasting away because one would rather not bother taking the time to eat.

The adult world, which we are now entering, does not have to be as limited as the picture many of us have of it. As it is commonly presented to us, this world consists mainly of the marketplace, and living in it consists mainly of getting a job. I’ve always been a bit terrified at the idea that my future was planned out like this. Even the idealistic talk I’ve heard about “living up to your full potential” and “being the very best you can be” often comes off to me as a pep talk to work as hard as you can at your job so you can advance.

But the world runs on more than money …

… and I reject the idea that the more a person advances in his or her profession, the more “successful” he or she is. Money, jobs and the work world are the means by which we provide for the material needs of ourselves and those we love, but that is all they are. They are not “life.” Working is only one facet of the all-encompassing process of life, which includes the satisfaction not only of physical needs, but of mental and spiritual needs.

We must never allow ourselves to become imprisoned by the concept of “success” in the material sense. Most of us would probably consider a multimillionaire to be more successful than a dirt farmer, but I submit that if the farmer has a loving family he is much more successful than a tycoon who can’t get along with others.

Success, if we want to define it at all, is measured by how at peace a person is with themselves and the world, not by the size of their paycheck. Though almost everyone here is probably thinking, “Oh, of course, I know that,” most of us will still spend our lives knocking ourselves out for raises and promotions. This process of getting raises and promotions is often called “moving up in the world,” a phrase which is totally inaccurate.

Moving up in the job market cannot be called moving up in the world any more than stopping at La Guardia to change planes can be called seeing New York.

Overemphasizing the importance of work can lead to several warped ways of dealing with others. In our careers, there are three types of people we should avoid being like. One is the person who puts the most efficient execution of his job at the very top of his list of priorities. While working he deals with other people in a brusque, terse manner to avoid wasting time. This person has been completely fooled by the illusion, in that he considers work to be the most important part of his life – more important, even, than his relationship with other people.

If we lose 15 minutes of work a day because we say hello to people coming in and out of the office and chat a little, so be it. There is no God of Work watching over us and damning us whenever we take a minute to do something else.

Those who devote themselves slavishly to efficiency build walls around themselves and are using their jobs as an escape from other people in the same way as others might use drugs or alcohol.

The second type of individual we should avoid becoming in our professions is the “tough” person. The “tough” person deals impersonally and suspiciously with others in business matters, because he feels that it is a dog-eat-dog world and everyone is out to get everyone else.

Being “tough” is often viewed as a kind of ruthless, cold self-preservation instinct which is justified because it is pitted against an equally cold and cruel world. The fault in this logic is that a person who enters working society with such an attitude will not be protecting himself from the coldness and cruelty of society, but will be adding to its sum. He will become cold and cruel himself.

This “heartless” society, it must be remembered, is composed of nothing more than people, and whenever one individual lets down, society is a little more human.

And a person who is not “tough” does not have to be a patsy who is always taken advantage of. He can take care of himself but realizes that he does not have to do so at the price of being heartless toward other people.

The last type of individual we should try to avoid being like is the person who feels that working society has a social structure – in other words, that people with high-paying jobs are superior to those who receive lower salaries. This person looks up to his working superiors as father figures or models of behavior, and does anything they tell him to in the hopes that someday he can rise to their level. He looks at those with lower-paying jobs with contempt, feeling that they must somehow deserve their lower wages. The problem with this type of person is that whether he looks above or below him, he does not view his co-workers as human beings. He suffers from the worst illusion of all – the more money you make, the better you are.

Of the time that is left in our lives, most of us will spend about a fifth of it at work.

We should be able to look at this figure from both angles. First, this means that 80 percent of our lives will be spent doing something other than working. If we allow the remaining 20 percent to rule our lives, or worse, if we say that that 20 percent is life, we are not going to enjoy living.

On the other hand, we must also view this from the standpoint that 20 percent of our lives is too much to waste.

Therefore, we should enjoy what we are doing for our careers. Work is not the whole of life, but neither is it separate from life. It is one facet of living, and every other facet – family, recreation, religion, philosophy, relaxation – is just as important. If we can realize this within ourselves, then our adult lives, both inside and outside of work, will be much more pleasant.

Many people become embittered later in life when they find that a “good job” has not given them the feeling of having lived a full life. Once they realize this, they can begin to develop their minds and spirits. It is never too late to change oneself in this manner – but rather than having to go through all this pain beforehand, it would be well for us – as young adults just embarking on independent lives – to make sure from the beginning not to neglect our minds and our spirits. We all have a right to be happy, and indeed happiness – rather than money and work – is what life is all about. Let us do our best in whatever profession we decide upon, but let us avoid being fooled by the illusion that work alone is all we need to be happy.

Let us also never put our work in opposition to our relations with other human beings.

________________________

Dave was co-valedictorian, by the way. His classmate Brenda Coombs gave a speech, too. I remember their class song as being “We May Never Pass This Way Again.”

So what has Dave been up to these past 46 years? He’s newly retired, but for many years headed the Music Composition Department, and taught music composition, improvisation, and contemporary music at Illinois Wesleyan University. And just to prove I took his Valedictorian Address to heart, I will add that Dave is happily married, has two adult children, and three grandchildren. He runs, cooks, travels, reads, plays music, and stays up to date on his sister’s blog.

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