Thus spoke Bill
December 12th, 2006
...But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.
To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble."
- Bill Watterson,
excerpts from "SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED"
May 20, 1990, Kenyon College Commencement
Well..Its something that I think we all would admit too but would rarely follow. To persue what really interests you would have been a far more easier thing to do if we did not seek or solicit society's approval. I think we lack the conviction in oursleves to actaully stick to what we believe hence we look for approvals, a kind of reassurance that we are doing is right thing.
The day we become free of this need I think we would be far more happier.
Well said. Man is a social animal. And seldom has a fact sucked more :)...
I think it was a part of graduation speech... was it not? Anyway thing said here are very true. But it all become really true only when the person in question actually knows where his destination is, exactly what he wants and where he wants to stop climbing up the ladder. Most of us do not really know what our objective is in life, or worse what we really want from life!
yes its a part of the graduation speech at his college, Kenyon... and you are just right. infact this is the exact same thing which watterson mentions in his speech... you should read the full speech... I am sure you will like it...