Once you graduate, it’s all downhill from there
This is an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen’s book, “Assume the Worst: The Graduation Speech You'll Never Hear:”
This commencement address will never be given, because graduation speakers are supposed to offer encouragement and inspiration.
That’s not what you need. You need a warning.
After an uncommonly long career observing and writing about misbehavior, I have one piece of advice as you launch yourselves from college: Assume the worst.
Based on the last 6,000 years of human history, it’s the only sensible way to proceed. Lowering your expectations will inoculate you against serial disappointments. It will also set you up for heart-lifting surprises on those occasions when someone you meet turns out to be unexpectedly honorable, generous and selfless.
If I were actually standing at a podium, looking out at a sea of young hope-filled faces, I’d begin with a raw appraisal of the real world: It’s pretty messed up.
It was messed up when I graduated, too, but not this bad. Our vernacular contained no such terms as “active shooter,” “ISISinspired” or “viral cat video.”
Still, I’d bet that even the brightest of you would sit there thinking — as past generations have — OK, it’s got to get better.
I’m here to say: No, it doesn’t.
And where did you get such a tender idea?
The day I got out of college, in 1974, a vainglorious paranoid was in the White House, shredding the U.S. Constitution for toilet paper. There was a futile and tragic overseas war, hatred and bloodshed in the Middle East, dissent and injustice on the streets of America.
Ring a bell?
The forces of indifference, incompetence and evil — yup, it exists — are thriving in the 21st century. No matter what good things you try to do, you’re in for a slog.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t dream of making an impact. Just understand that the odds are stacked against you.
One key to meaningful achievement is disregarding the lame platitudes you’ll hear in real commencement speeches, group therapy and self-help podcasts:
Live each day as if it’s your last. As wise and appealing as this might sound, it’s actually terrible advice. If you live every day as if it’s your last, you won’t accomplish a damn thing. You’ll soon run out of money, your car will get repossessed, you’ll be evicted from your apartment and the person you’re living with will dump you for somebody with a mid-level management job at BrandsMart.
If you set your mind to it, you can be anything you want to be. Total crap. Nobody can be absolutely anything they want to be — no matter how hard they wish, pray or try. Self-delusion is no virtue. Anyone who tells you the sky’s the limit is blowing smoke up your you-know-what.
That’s not to say you can’t achieve something remarkable and enduring. But doing that will be impossible if you fail to grasp your own strengths and weaknesses. In other words, work with what you’ve got.
Try to find goodness in everyone you meet. Another waste of time. Relationships aren’t supposed to be reclamation projects. The humane qualities of any new acquaintance should be evident in the first five minutes of conversation — 10 minutes, tops. If it requires the psychological equivalent of a metal detector to locate somebody’s true self, then they’re not worth the trouble. Life is short. Say good-bye.
Don’t be quick to judge others. Are you kidding? If you don’t learn how to judge others — and judge fast — you’ll get metaphorically trampled from now until the day you die. For instance, you all know people who proudly refuse to accept — despite the tonnage of scientific evidence — that the Earth’s climate is changing. These chowderheads claim it’s all a political lie, fake news. And they’ll tell you that while they’re standing ankle-deep in tidewater on a street corner in Miami Beach. During prehistoric times, such blundering specimens would have made an easy supper for the fleet and the fanged.
Today, the unfittest survive longer, and many of them find their way to voting booths on Election Day. Your duty is to offset the harm they do by making sure that you, too, vote.
It’s hard to say whether humankind in totality is dumber today than it was back in 1974, but there’s no question that more dumb behavior is on wider display.
My advice?
Figure out what you’re good at, and get better at it. Along the way, don’t waste your time on people whose decency isn’t apparent when you first meet for a cup of coffee. Be an astute judge of character, and learn to judge quickly.
Read the news. Pay attention. Always aspire to act in a way that cancels out someone else’s cruel or stupid behavior.
Never stop worrying.
Live each day as if your rent is due tomorrow.
And always, always be the one who sleeps near the campfire — the one who would make Darwin proud.