《Trying to Pursue Your Beloved Career》歌词

[00:00:02] Trying to Pursue Your Beloved Career - 英语演讲

[00:00:08] Baccalaureate Address by Drew G. Faust

[00:00:11] at Harvard University

[00:00:12] Distinguished guests, graduates

[00:00:17] and your families,colleagues and friends,

[00:00:20] it’s a pleasure to be with you today.

[00:00:22] In the curious custom of this venerable institution,

[00:00:28] I find myself standing before

[00:00:31] you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom.

[00:00:35] Here I am in a pulpit,

[00:00:37] dressed like a Puritan minister -

[00:00:39] an apparition that would have horrified

[00:00:43] many of my distinguished forebears

[00:00:45] and perhaps rededicated some of them

[00:00:47] to the extirpation of witches.

[00:00:49] This moment would have propelled Increase

[00:00:53] and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.”

[00:00:56] But here I am and there you are

[00:01:00] and it is the moment of and for Veritas.

[00:01:04] You have been undergraduates for four years.

[00:01:09] I have been president for not quite one.

[00:01:12] You have known three presidents;

[00:01:15] I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience?

[00:01:21] Maybe you should be offering the wisdom.

[00:01:24] Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could,

[00:01:28] in Harvard Law School style,

[00:01:30] do cold calls for the next hour or so.

[00:01:34] We all do seem to have made it to this point -

[00:01:38] more or less in one piece.

[00:01:41] Though I recently learned

[00:01:43] that we have not provided you

[00:01:45] with dinner since May 22.

[00:01:46] I know we need to wean you from Harvard

[00:01:49] in a figurative sense.

[00:01:51] I never knew we took it quite so literally.

[00:01:54] But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment.

[00:02:00] Let’s imagine this were a baccalaureate service

[00:02:04] in the form of Q & A, and you were asking the questions.

[00:02:07] “What is the meaning of life, President Faust?

[00:02:11] What were these four years at Harvard for?

[00:02:14] President Faust, you must have learned something

[00:02:18] since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?”

[00:02:21] (Forty years. I’ll say it out loud

[00:02:25] since every detail of my life -

[00:02:27] and certainly the years of my Bryn Mawr degree -

[00:02:30] now seems to be publicly available.

[00:02:33] But please remember I was young for my class.)

[00:02:36] In a way, you have been engaging me

[00:02:40] in this Q & A for the past year.

[00:02:42] On just these questions, although you have phrased

[00:02:46] them a bit more narrowly.

[00:02:47] And I have been trying to figure out

[00:02:49] how I might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly,

[00:02:53] why you were asking.

[00:02:55] Let me explain. It actually began

[00:03:00] when I met with the UC just after my appointment

[00:03:04] was announced in the winter of 2007.

[00:03:06] Then the questions continued

[00:03:09] when I had lunch at Kirkland House,

[00:03:11] dinner at Leverett, when I met with students

[00:03:14] in my office hours, even with some recent graduates

[00:03:17] I encountered abroad. The first thing you asked me

[00:03:22] about wasn’t the curriculum or advising

[00:03:25] or faculty contact or even student space.

[00:03:28] In fact, it wasn’t even alcohol policy.

[00:03:32] Instead, you repeatedly asked me:

[00:03:36] Why are so many of us going to Wall Street?

[00:03:39] Why are we going in such numbers

[00:03:42] from Harvard to finance, consulting, banking?

[00:03:45] There are a number of ways to think about

[00:03:50] this question and how to answer it.

[00:03:52] There is the Willie Sutton approach.

[00:03:54] You may know that when he was asked

[00:03:57] why he robbed banks, he replied,

[00:03:59] “Because that’s where the money is.”

[00:04:01] Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz,

[00:04:05] whom many of you have encountered in your economics concentration,

[00:04:08] offer a not dissimilar answer based

[00:04:12] on their study of student career choices since the seventies.

[00:04:16] They find it notable that,

[00:04:18] given the very high pecuniary rewards in finance,

[00:04:21] many students nonetheless still choose

[00:04:24] to do something else. Indeed, 37 of you have

[00:04:29] signed on with Teach for America;

[00:04:31] one of you will dance tango

[00:04:33] and work in dance therapy in Argentina;

[00:04:36] another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya;

[00:04:40] another, with an honors degree in math,

[00:04:43] will study poetry; another will train

[00:04:47] as a pilot with the USAF; another will work

[00:04:49] to combat breast cancer.

[00:04:49] Numbers of you will go to law school,

[00:04:55] medical school, and graduate school.

[00:04:57] But, consistent with

[00:04:59] the pattern Goldin and Katz have documented,

[00:05:02] a considerable number of you are selecting finance

[00:05:05] and consulting. The Crimson’s survey of last year’s class

[00:05:09] reported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women

[00:05:14] entering the workforce made this choice.

[00:05:17] This year, even in challenging economic times,

[00:05:21] the figure is 39 percent.

[00:05:23] High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut,

[00:05:29] the reassurance for many of you

[00:05:32] that you will be in New York working

[00:05:33] and living and enjoying life alongside your friends,

[00:05:37] the promise of interesting work -

[00:05:40] there are lots of ways to explain these choices.

[00:05:43] For some of you, it is a commitment

[00:05:46] for only a year or two in any case.

[00:05:48] Others believe they will best be able to

[00:05:52] do good by first doing well.

[00:05:54] Yet, you ask me why you are following this path.

[00:05:58] I find myself in some ways less interested

[00:06:04] in answering your question than in figuring out

[00:06:07] why you are posing it.

[00:06:08] If Professors Goldin and Katz have it right;

[00:06:12] if finance is indeed the “rational choice,”

[00:06:15] why do you keep raising this issue with me?

[00:06:18] Why does this seemingly rational choice

[00:06:21] strike a number of you as not understandable,

[00:06:24] as not entirely rational,

[00:06:27] as in some sense less a free choice

[00:06:30] than a compulsion or necessity?

[00:06:32] Why does this seem to be troubling so many of you?

[00:06:37] You are asking me, I think,

[00:06:40] about the meaning of life,

[00:06:42] though you have posed your question in code -

[00:06:45] in terms of the observable and measurable phenomenon

[00:06:49] of senior career choice rather than the abstract,

[00:06:52] unfathomable and almost embarrassing realm of metaphysics.

[00:06:57] The Meaning of Life - is a cliché -

[00:07:01] easier to deal with as the ironic title

[00:07:04] of a Monty Python movie or the subject

[00:07:06] of a Simpsons episode than as a matter

[00:07:09] about which one would dare admit to harboring serious concern.

[00:07:14] But let’s for a moment abandon our Harvard savoir faire,

[00:07:20] our imperturbability, our pretense of invulnerability,

[00:07:24] and try to find the beginnings of some answers to your question.

[00:07:31] I think you are worried

[00:07:34] because you want your lives not just

[00:07:35] to be conventionally successful, but to be meaningful,

[00:07:39] and you are not sure how those two goals fit together.

[00:07:42] You are not sure if a generous starting salary at

[00:07:46] a prestigious brand name organization together

[00:07:50] with the promise of future wealth will feed your soul.

[00:07:55] Why are you worried?

[00:07:57] Partly it is our fault.

[00:07:59] We have told you from the moment

[00:08:01] you arrived here that you will be the leaders

[00:08:04] responsible for the future,

[00:08:06] that you are the best and the brightest

[00:08:08] on whom we will all depend,

[00:08:10] that you will change the world.

[00:08:12] We have burdened you with no small expectations.

[00:08:16] And you have already done remarkable things

[00:08:19] to fulfill them: your dedication to service demonstrated

[00:08:23] in your extracurricular engagements,

[00:08:26] your concern about the future of the planet expressed

[00:08:30] in your vigorous championing of sustainability,

[00:08:32] your reinvigoration of American politics

[00:08:36] through engagement in this year’s presidential contests.

[00:08:40] But many of you are now wondering how these commitments

[00:08:46] fit with a career choice.

[00:08:47] Is it necessary to decide between remunerative work

[00:08:51] and meaningful work?

[00:08:53] If it were to be either/or,

[00:08:55] which would you choose?

[00:08:57] Is there a way to have both?

[00:08:59] You are asking me fundamental questions

[00:09:04] about values, about trying to reconcile potentially

[00:09:08] competing goods, about recognizing

[00:09:10] that it may not be possible to have it all.

[00:09:14] You are at a moment of transition

[00:09:16] that requires making choices.

[00:09:18] And selecting one option -

[00:09:21] a job, a career, a graduate program -

[00:09:24] means not selecting others.

[00:09:26] Every decision means loss as well as gain -

[00:09:30] possibilities foregone as well as possibilities embraced.

[00:09:34] Your question to me is partly about that -

[00:09:38] about loss of roads not taken.

[00:09:42] Finance, Wall Street,

[00:09:45] “recruiting” have become the symbol of this dilemma,

[00:09:48] representing a set of issues

[00:09:51] that is much broader and deeper

[00:09:52] than just one career path.

[00:09:54] These are issues that in one way

[00:09:58] or another will at some point face you all -

[00:10:00] as you graduate from medical school

[00:10:03] and choose a specialty-family practice or dermatology,

[00:10:07] as you decide whether to use your law degree

[00:10:10] to work for a corporate firm or as a public defender,

[00:10:14] as you decide whether to stay in teaching

[00:10:17] after your two years with TFA.

[00:10:19] You are worried because you want to

[00:10:22] have both a meaningful life and a successful one;

[00:10:25] you know you were educated to make a difference

[00:10:28] not just for yourself, for your own comfort and satisfaction,

[00:10:32] but for the world around you.

[00:10:35] And now you have to figure out the way

[00:10:38] to make that possible.

[00:10:40] I think there is a second reason

[00:10:44] you are worried - related to but not entirely

[00:10:47] distinct from the first. You want to be happy.

[00:10:50] You have flocked to courses like “Positive Psychology”

[00:10:55] and “The Science of Happiness” in search of tips.

[00:10:58] But how do we find happiness?

[00:11:00] I can offer one encouraging answer: get older.

[00:11:05] Turns out that survey data show older people -

[00:11:08] that is, my age - report themselves happier

[00:11:12] than do younger ones.

[00:11:13] But perhaps you don’t want to wait.

[00:11:17] As I have listened to you

[00:11:20] talk about the choices ahead of you,

[00:11:21] I have heard you articulate your worries

[00:11:24] about the relationship of success and happiness -

[00:11:27] perhaps, more accurately,

[00:11:29] how to define success so that it yields

[00:11:32] and encompasses real happiness,

[00:11:34] not just money and prestige.

[00:11:37] The most remunerative choice, you fear,

[00:11:41] may not be the most meaningful

[00:11:43] and the most satisfying.

[00:11:44] But you wonder how you would ever survive

[00:11:49] as an artist or an actor or a public servant

[00:11:52] or a high school teacher?

[00:11:53] How would you ever figure out a path

[00:11:56] by which to make your way in journalism?

[00:11:58] Would you ever find a job as an English professor

[00:12:02] after you finished who knows

[00:12:04] how many years of graduate school

[00:12:06] and dissertation writing?

[00:12:07] The answer is: you won’t know till you try.

[00:12:12] But if you don’t try to do what you love -

[00:12:15] whether it is painting or biology or finance;

[00:12:19] if you don’t pursue what you think

[00:12:22] will be most meaningful, you will regret it.

[00:12:25] Life is long. There is always time for Plan B.

[00:12:29] But don’t begin with it.

[00:12:32] I think of this as my parking space theory

[00:12:36] of career choice, and I have been sharing it

[00:12:39] with students for decades.

[00:12:41] Don’t park 20 blocks from your destination

[00:12:44] because you think you’ll never find a space.

[00:12:46] Go where you want to be and then

[00:12:49] circle back to where you have to be.

[00:12:51] You may love investment banking or finance or consulting.

[00:12:56] It might be just right for you.

[00:12:58] Or, you might be like the senior I met

[00:13:01] at lunch at Kirkland who had just returned

[00:13:04] from an interview on the West Coast with

[00:13:06] a prestigious consulting firm.

[00:13:08] “Why am I doing this?” she asked.

[00:13:11] “I hate flying, I hate hotels, I won’t like this job.”

[00:13:14] Find work you love.

[00:13:17] It is hard to be happy if you spend

[00:13:19] more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t.

[00:13:23] But what is ultimately most important here

[00:13:28] is that you are asking the question -

[00:13:30] not just of me but of yourselves.

[00:13:33] You are choosing roads and at the same time

[00:13:37] challenging your own choices.

[00:13:38] You have a notion of what you want your life

[00:13:41] to be and you are not sure the road you are taking

[00:13:44] is going to get you there.

[00:13:45] This is the best news.

[00:13:49] And it is also, I hope, to some degree,

[00:13:52] our fault. Noticing your life,

[00:13:55] reflecting upon it, considering how you can live it well,

[00:13:57] wondering how you can do good:

[00:14:02] These are perhaps the most valuable things

[00:14:05] that a liberal arts education has equipped you to do.

[00:14:08] A liberal education demands

[00:14:11] that you live self-consciously.

[00:14:13] It prepares you to seek

[00:14:15] and define the meaning inherent in all you do.

[00:14:18] It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself,

[00:14:22] a person in this way supremely

[00:14:25] equipped to take charge of your life

[00:14:27] and how it unfolds. It is in this sense

[00:14:30] that the liberal arts are liberal -

[00:14:32] as in literate - to free.

[00:14:35] They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency,

[00:14:39] of discovering meaning, of making choices.

[00:14:43] The surest way to have a meaningful,

[00:14:46] happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it.

[00:14:50] Don’t settle. Be prepared to change routes.

[00:14:54] Remember the impossible expectations we have of you,

[00:14:58] and even as you recognize they are impossible,

[00:15:02] remember how important they are as a lodestar

[00:15:05] guiding you toward something

[00:15:07] that matters to you and to the world.

[00:15:09] The meaning of your life is for you to make.

[00:15:14] I can’t wait to see how you all turn out.

[00:15:19] Do come back, from time to time, and let us know.

[00:15:22] Thank you.