We all do seem to have made it to this point—more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally.
But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let’s imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of Q & A，and you were asking the questions.“What is the meaning of life，President Faust? What were these four years at Harvard for? President Faust，you must have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?”(Forty years. I’ll say it out loud since every detail of my life—and certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree—now seems to be publicly available. But please remember I was young for my class.)
In a way，you have been engaging me in this Q & A for the past year. On just these questions，although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. And I have been trying to figure out how I might answer and，perhaps more intriguingly，why you were asking.
As I have listened to you talk about the choices ahead of you，I have heard you articulate your worries about the relationship of success and happiness—perhaps，more accurately，how to define success so that it yields and encompasses real happiness，not just money and prestige. The most remunerative choice，you fear，may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying. But you wonder how you would ever survive as an artist or an actor or a public servant or a high school teacher? How would you ever figure out a path by which to make your way into journalism? Would you ever find a job as an English professor after you finished who knows how many years of graduate school and dissertation writing?
The answer is：you won’t know till you try. But if you don’t try to do what you love—whether it is painting or biology or finance；if you don’t pursue what you think will be most meaningful，you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don’t begin with it.
I think of this as my parking space theory of career choice，and I have been sharing it with students for decades. Don’t park 20 blocks from your destination because you think you’ll never find a space. Go where you want to be and then circle back to where you have to be.
You may love investment banking or finance or consulting. It might be just right for you. Or，you might be like the senior I met at lunch at Kirkland who had just returned from an interview on the West Coast with a prestigious consulting firm.“Why am I doing this?”she asked.“I hate flying，I hate hotels，I won’t like this job.”Find work you love. It is hard to be happy if you spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t.
But what is ultimately most important here is that you are asking the question—not just of me but of yourselves. You are choosing roads and at the same time challenging your own choices. You have a notion of what you want your life to be and you are not sure the road you are taking is going to get you there. This is the best news. And it is also，I hope，to some degree，our fault. Noticing your life，reflecting upon it，considering how you can live it well，wondering how you can do good：These are perhaps the most valuable things that a liberal arts education has equipped you to do. A liberal education demands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define the meaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself，a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your life and how it unfolds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal—as in liberate—to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency，of discovering meaning，of making choices. The surest way to have a meaningful，happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don’t settle. Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you，and even as you recognize they are impossible，remember how important they are as a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to the world. The meaning of your life is for you to make.
I can’t wait to see how you all turn out. Do come back，from time to time，and let us know.
在这所久负盛名的大学的别具一格的仪式上，我站在了你们的面前，被期待着给予一些蕴含着恒久智慧的言论。站在这个讲台上，我穿得像个清教徒教长——一个可能会吓到杰出前辈们的怪物，或许使他们中的一些人重新致力于铲除巫婆的事业上。这个时刻也许会使我们的前辈Increase和Cotton父子气得发疯。但现在，我在上面，你们在下面，此时此刻，属于真理，为了真理。
你们已经在哈佛做了四年的大学生，而我当哈佛校长还不到一年。你们认识了三个校长，而我只认识了你们这一届大四的。算起来我哪有资格说什么经验之谈？或许应该由你们上来展示一下智慧。要不我们换换位置？然后我就可以像哈佛法学院的学生那样，在接下来的一个小时内不时地冷不防地提出问题。
学校和学生们似乎都在努力让时间来到这一时刻，而且还差不多是步调一致的。我这两天才得知哈佛从5月22日开始就你们就没有晚饭吃了。虽然有比喻说“我们早晚得给你们断奶”，但没想到我们的后勤还真的早早就把“奶”给断了。
现在还是让我们回到我刚才说的提问题的事上吧。让我们设想一下这是个哈佛大学给本科生的毕业服务，是以问答的形式。你们将问些问题，比如：“福校长啊，人生的价值是什么呢？我们上这四年大学是为了什么呢？福校长，你大学毕业到现在的40年里一定学到些什么东西可以教给我们吧？”（40年啊，我就直说了，因为我人生中的每段细节——当然包括我在布林茅尔女子学院的一年——现在似乎都成了公共资源。但请记住在哈佛我可是“新生”。）
在某种程度上，在过去的一年里你们一直都在让我从事这种问答。仅仅从这些问题上，即使你们措辞问题都倾向于狭义，而我除了思考怎么做出回答外，更激发我去思考的，是你们为什么问这些问题。
……
第一章 Peace in the Atomic Age (3)
在聊天时我听过你们谈到你们目前所面临的选择，我听到你们一字一句地说出你们对于成功与幸福的关系的忧虑——也许，更精确地讲，怎样去定义成功才能使它具有或包含真正的幸福，而不仅仅是金钱和荣誉。你们害怕，报酬最丰厚的选择，也许不是最有价值的和最令人满意的选择。但是你们也担心，如果作为一个艺术家或是一个演员，一个人民公仆或是一个中学老师，该如何才能生存下去？然而，你们可曾想过，如果你的梦想是新闻业，怎样才能想出一条通往梦想的道路呢？难道你会在读了不知多少年研，写了不知多少毕业论文终于毕业后，找一个英语教授的工作吗？
答案是：你不试试就永远都不会知道。但如果你不试着去做自己热爱的事情，不管是玩泥巴、生物还是金融，如果连你自己都不去追求你认为最有价值的事，你终将后悔。人生路漫漫，你总有时间去给自己留“后路”，但可别一开始就走“后路”。
我把这叫做我的关于职业选择的“泊车”理论，几十年来我一直都在向学生们“兜售”我的这个理论。不要因为怕找不到停车位而把车停在距离目的地20个路口远的地方。直接到达你想去的地方，哪怕再绕回来停，你暂时停的地方只是你被迫停的地方。
你也许喜欢做投行，或是做金融抑或做理财咨询。都可能是适合你的。那也许真的就是适合你的。或许你也会像我在Kirkland House见到的那个大四学生一样，她刚从美国西海岸一家著名理财咨询公司的面试回来。“我为什么要做这个？”她说，“我讨厌坐飞机，我讨厌住宾馆，我是不会喜欢这份工作的。”找个你热爱的工作。如果你把你一天中醒着的一大半时间用来做你不喜欢的事情，你是很难感到幸福的。