Word: script
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Then came your junior year, and suddenly there was no script. The world had shifted. It was the year of Obama. Who could have anticipated that? It was the year of entropy, with catastrophic floods and fires, an imminent flu pandemic, and the biggest meltdown of world financial systems since the Great Depression. Jobs you had counted on evaporated. Opportunities vanished. Phrases like “bailout” and “too big to fail” were suddenly being applied to companies you had hoped would someday recruit you. And the University was not immune. We didn?...
...unforeseen events of the past two years have forced us to imagine the world differently; they have demanded that we adapt and throw away the script we thought we were following. And they have reminded us once again of the value of the liberal arts, which are designed to prepare us for life without a script. Since you cannot know what you need to be ready for, we have tried to get you ready for anything...
...within a narrow definition of success, as one of you told me. “What will I say at my fifth reunion?” you wonder. What is “extraordinary enough”? It is, quite simply, having the courage to write your own script. You can be a risk taker. In fact, as we have learned, you will be a risk taker whatever you choose because no choice is guaranteed to be safe; no path is risk-free. So do what you love—whether it is law or drama, finance or physics...
...fourth lesson: Living in a world without a script demands and rewards creativity. You need to be the authors, the entrepreneurs, of your own lives. Columnist David Brooks wrote recently of a process he called “leading with two minds”—the balanced influence of people who can be, as he put it, “practitioners one month and then academic observers of themselves the next.” “The ability to create knowledge and put it to use is the adaptive characteristic of humans,” Professor Louis...
...also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.” This message is just as forceful and meaningful here today as it was in South Africa nearly a half-century ago, although now he would say women and men. That particular script, that time of uncertainty, had an inspiring ending; apartheid was destroyed. Now you have your own uncertainties and dangers and your own scripts to write. The world has never needed you more. And we send you into that world with full confidence in your commitment and in your ability...