Wednesday, June 26, 2013

What is your why?

Oh man, I'm clearing out my inbox, reorganizing my outlook folders, and cleaning up anything left from the past year at work. Before I move on to our new incoming class, I'd like to stop and muse for a little while about our fantastic commencement speaker, Matt Levatich, president and chief operating officer of Harley-Davidson Motor Company and, yes, he did ride in for his address on a beautiful Harley. Over the years, I have sat through many a graduation ceremony with speakers that varied from miserably dull to wonderfully empowering. Matt was definitely the latter. The message of his speech was, "What is your why?" I find this to be one of those important things that many people fail to ask themselves when choosing a college, major, and even their profession. I also think that is why there are so many people that are miserable at their jobs. 
Personally, I love what I do. Yes, my job is stressful, sometimes I feel under appreciated by my supervisors, most of the time the kids are completely helpless and spoiled and expect me to fix all of their problems for them but I love working in higher education. Since I've been doing it for over eight years of my adult life, I imagine that's pretty obvious to most people but it wasn't always obvious to me. I've pursued a great number of career paths and majors throughout the past 15 years. I've majored in physical therapy, music, theatre, and psychology and I've considered everything from computer science to special education to linguistics and speech pathology. I have a great many things I love and it took me a long time to dwindle down that list from things I love into things I love to do. You spend a great deal more of your time at work than you do almost anywhere else in your life and pursuing a career that you are not passionate about will only insure that you are completely miserable for the rest of your life. I love working in higher education, I love leading undergraduates down the path that will shape the rest of their life, and I've seen the flaws in our system and I'm extremely passionate about working to fix those on whatever level that I can. I know that everyone has this fire inside of them. Some of them are too scared to follow it and some just don't take the time to reflect and make that decision. So that is my challenge to you today. Take a break from the craziness of your life, sit and think about who you are, what you want out of life, and how to get there, and don't be afraid to follow the path that it takes you down. Whether you're 16, 30, or 75, it's never too late to make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you. Go out and enjoy the time you have. 


On a completely unrelated note, watch this video. I wholeheartedly support this cause and any other anti-bullying campaigns out there. Be the change you want to see in the world.

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