Two weeks ago, I met with a student I had first become acquainted with several years ago. We shared a quick bite to eat, and in the course of the conversation, she told me that she would soon be graduating.
Did I have any advice to offer before she entered the “real world”? More specifically, she asked me for advice on how to live until she became as old as I am.
I told her I’d think about it, all the while wincing at the realization that I was about three times her age.
What could I tell her? What possible advice could a tax and accounting professor give to a graduating senior, other than to pay her taxes on time? What “life lessons” could I pass on that she hasn’t already heard from family and friends?
At its heart, life’s a balancing act. Somehow, we need to manage the tension between the physical, mental and spiritual.
Time and energy are always in short supply, so we need to learn how to slice up these items and give all the phases of our life their proper attention.
If we devote too much time, attention and energy to the physical, or mental, or any other part of our existence, we become unbalanced.
This unhealthy condition takes its toll both on us and those around us.
Walking the tightrope of life is a life-long challenge; we are continually losing and (hopefully) regaining our balance.
Life is about accumulating memories that we review and relive during our short earthly sojourn.
We arrive with nothing and we take nothing with us when we leave. What we leave behind are memories, things that others will recall when our name is mentioned.
So, we should leave a trail of positive memories — markers and evidence of our passage through life.
The easiest way to do this is to make the world a better place in our wake with small, random acts of kindness.
Hold the door open, greet your classmates, flush the toilet, pick up your litter, offer to work with the student who’s having trouble and take out the trash — anything to leave your surroundings better because you were there. It’s evidence that you cared.
Always keep your words soft and sweet. Sometimes you may have to eat them. This doesn’t mean that you must shrink from speaking the truth or being outspoken when appropriate.
The English language is rich enough so that a point can be made without giving offense.
Think of learning as a life-long endeavor. With the advances of knowledge and technology, all of us need to engage in continuing professional education as part of a life-long process.
Some professions (e.g. law, medicine, accounting) have formalized this concept into a legal requirement.
A lifelong educational plan should be shaped like the letter “T.”
The horizontal portion describes the breadth of your knowledge.
It should be constantly expanding to the left and the right, signifying the new areas that are being explored.
At the same time, it should become thicker, indicating that you’re exploring each area in greater depth.
The upright, or vertical, portion of the “T” symbolizes your chosen area of expertise.
This should be lengthening with the passage of time, showing a continuous deepening in your mastery of your chosen field.
It should also be thickening, showing that the areas that touch your professional knowledge base are also being explored.
Quite a challenge, this thing called life. When it’s completed you should be able to look back on it with a sense of pride, knowing that you’ve contributed all you can and lived each moment.
Because none of us knows which moment will be our last, we need to live our life on a day-by-day basis with the thought in mind that someday, we’ll be right.
And to that student I had lunch with: I hope this helps.
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