Enthusiasm

Fifty years ago, I gave a speech at my high school commencement ceremony. I recall I shared some ideas about success, such as being willing to work hard, being able to get along with people, and being a person who knows how to think and communicate. The most important idea I shared was to have enthusiasm. I learned a lot of these concepts from my father, who once told me that enthusiasm is the measure of all the other factors. He said if you don’t have much enthusiasm, you need to question what you are doing. Are you working hard enough? Are you able to get along with people? Are you thinking about ways to do better? Are you communicating your ideas clearly? If any of these is lacking, no wonder you aren’t very enthusiastic.

For a high school student, the speech wasn’t bad. I remember it was about as well-received as the others. Yet, after 50 years, I would like to revise it a little. Here’s what I might say now:

Today, I’m going to put aside the notion that success is about making money or advancing in your career. These are not bad things, but it seems to me they are only by-products of doing well.

I suppose the first step towards success is to learn all you can, not just in terms of the job, but in terms of life in general. Of course, that means a willingness to learn, as well as to un-learn something whenever you realize you have accepted a false or mistaken piece of information. It also means learning in such a way that you seldom need to ask a question more than once and you avoid making the same mistakes. “Learn your lessons well,” some of my teachers said. I once met a record producer who told us, “You end up paying for your education one way or another.” It seems to me many people try to avoid learning, believing things will just “work out.” Some are arrogant enough to say, “I don’t need to know this.” I’ve found I had no way of knowing what I truly needed until I could look back on my life. Now that I’m in the last quarter of play, I’m beginning to understand more about what I needed and what I didn’t need. So, I’d say, don’t be a fool. Learn all you can and evaluate it later.

My generation had to learn the difference between just doing a job and doing good work. Some discovered they could work very hard and still not get very far. While hard work is important, doing good work – work that you can be proud to sign your name to – is paramount. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, or how many hours you put in, if the result isn’t any good. That’s a hard lesson. So do good work. Even if you aren’t paid enough, you can still hold your head high. J.S. Bach signed his work, “To the Glory of God.” I wonder how much of our work is worthy of that kind of attribution.

I once promoted the idea of getting along with people as if getting along was enough. It’s not. Recently, many people have had to re-examine what professionalism means, especially considering the “me too” movement. And it seems to me young people are less interested in “playing the game” of “go along to get along.” I hope forming good, genuine relationships with colleagues and coworkers is becoming the norm, because being able to work with others is important. I’m encouraged that so many young people seem to understand that life is a team effort. None of us can do it alone. If we want to do good work, we need others to help us.

By the way, we still need to have something to say and to know how to say it. Thinking and communicating are perhaps more important now than ever before. We are fifty years farther into the information economy. Yet, some old ideas are worth considering.

Aristotle wrote that the good is “the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are several virtues, then in accordance with the best and most complete.” In his view, happiness is not a momentary feeling, but the result of a life well-lived. It seems to me virtue involves making the best choices we can for ourselves and with respect to others. Only then can we do “good.”

Enthusiasm matters. Kenneth Clark, author of “Civilization,” proposed that civilization is as much the result of the desire to be civilized as anything else. Civilizations collapse under the weight of a collective lack of enthusiasm. When enough people lose interest, a civilization dies. I still think enthusiasm is the gauge of how well we are doing with thinking, communicating, working, and understanding others. When the fuel gauge of a car points towards “empty,” it’s time to put gas in the tank. The same is true in work and life. If we find ourselves losing interest, it might be time to think better thoughts, communicate better, do better work, or foster better relationships.

Most of what I said fifty years ago still holds true. I can summarize it this way: Think good thoughts – Use good words – Do good work – Form good relationships – Check your enthusiasm meter.