Arthur Brooks

The two graduation speeches.

Graduation speech number one is go find a job that you love and that's fun and you'll never work a day in your life.

Now that speech is being given by a cardboard box magnet who's so severely workaholic that he's had three heart attacks and two divorces by the age of 40.

So don't believe it.

Or the second speech is go save the world.

No pressure.

You know, it's like, well, my generation wrecked the world.

Go save the world.

You know, that's the second speech.

Both of those are wrong, fundamentally.

Your calling, generally speaking, finds you as the thing that you can't stop thinking about, is the most interesting thing.

It's not the thing that you think, I'm gonna be the savior, I'm gonna be the great Messiah.

And it's not the most fun thing necessarily.

The thing that's most interesting to you is often not that fun, actually.

A lot of the time, it's actually not that fun.

It's just something you can't get out of your head.

It's something you feel you really needed to do.

Second, the goal is creating value with your life, is earning your success, is being rewarded for something that you do well, where you create real value with your hard work and personal motivation.

And more importantly, where you're serving somebody, where somebody needs you.

That's what it comes down to.