CNN记者杰克·泰普尔在达特茅斯学院2017毕业典礼上的演讲_演讲

CNN记者杰克·泰普尔在达特茅斯学院2017毕业典礼上的演讲

You can get that from YouTube later. Those are the easy ones. But there are a few harder-fought lessons into which I would like to delve a bit further.

The first one is about you, right now. For you, my dearest Class of 2017. Even if you have jobs or grad school lined up, you are no doubt stressing a bit about the question: What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

And my first serious bit of advice to you is: Do not worry if you do not know what you want to do with the rest of your life; it is OK if you take years to figure it out. Wall Street, Silicon Valley, law school – they ain’t going anywhere.

I did not become a full-time journalist until I was almost 29. It took me a little time to figure out where my particular qualities of annoying persistence, uncomfortable observations, and curiously rooted self-regard might best be suited.

Now, our society worships the prodigies. The Mozarts. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, it is a sobering thought to consider that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for twelve years.

But to measure success by how old you are when you achieve it is silly. The Adventures of Tom Sawyerwasn’t published until Mark Twain was 41.

Do not stress if you have no idea what you want to do with the rest of your life. View these years, where your responsibilities are relatively few, as a journey, as an adventure. And adventures are not seamless trips from point A to point B; they have ups and downs and obstacles. And every crappy internship, every rude boss, every remedial chore that makes you wonder, “Why did I bother working so hard to get into Dartmouth and graduate from Dartmouth?” – it is all part of this voyage.