Robert B. Reich: Commencement 2008

Former Secretary of Labor and Author Encourages Graduates in Keynote Address

May 18, 2008

by Robert B. Reich

Members of the Class of 2008, President Gordon, faculty, alumni, friends, parents, significant others, insignificant others.

As you can see, my years in Bill Clinton's cabinet wore me down. I was 6 foot three when I started. I began to worry I'd vanish. Actually, I left the cabinet for a different reason, which I will come to. It may have a bearing on the choices you will make.

And make no mistake — you will have many choices. Despite a slowing economy that may slow down your job search, you have a world of options.

Forty years ago when my class graduated from college our choices were more limited. A war was raging in Vietnam and some of us were about to be drafted. I suspected I was safe because I was under the minimum height but when I reported for my physical the examining sergeant took one look and said: “Just what we've been waiting for - a tunnel rat to flush out the VC from under the rice paddies.” It turned out I was too short to be a tunnel rat, by about an inch.

That one inch allowed me to choose a fellowship at Oxford. I took a boat and got dreadfully seasick. There was a knock on my cabin door and in front of me stood a tall, gangly Southerner about my age, whom I'd briefly met on the dock when we left America. He was holding chicken soup in one hand and crackers in the other, and he said: “I heard you weren't feeling too well and thought these might help. My name is Bill Clinton.” He didn't say “I feel your pain.” That came years later. But we struck up a friendship, and years later he appointed me to his cabinet.

An inch taller and I would have been under the rice paddies. So you see, what seems like a handicap can work to your advantage. Without that ocean trip I would not have been in the cabinet. So you never know. Treat everyone you meet like they're going to be President of the United States some day, and maybe one of them will be.

What do I mean when I talk about choices? Matters of inches, unanticipated places and people. Do not over-plan your lives. Do not subject your future to cost-benefit analysis. There are too many variables. Do not try to satisfy other people's expectations for you. It's your life, not their's.

And be careful with your own expectations of yourself. You may not know enough about yourself yet to have fully-formed expectations.

What will your first job after graduation be like? Here I can speak from authority as former Secretary of Labor of the United States who was in charge of jobs.

Your first job is likely to be a bit humbling. My first job was in the Senate office of Robert F. Kennedy, which doesn't sound humbling until you know my particular job — which was to run Robert Kennedy's signature machine. That was years ago when signature machines were big clunky mechanical arms with pens at the end. I had to put letters that had been typed onto the Senator's stationery under the signature arm, line them up just right and press a button so the machine would sign Kennedy's name at the appropriate spot. After two months I was so bored I began typing letters to my friends on Kennedy's stationery - “Dear Mr. Dworkin, congratulations on having the largest nose in New York State, sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy.” These letters are now collector's items on eBay.

But then one day I was standing outside an elevator when the doors opened and there was Robert F. Kennedy himself - first time I'd seen him. He was surrounded by his advisors but he stopped and looked at me and said, “Hi,Bob.” I couldn't believe it. He knew my name! I could have worked his signature machine for another five years. That taught me another important lesson: Treat everyone you work with with respect, and you'll inspire the best in them.

Hopefully, over your career your jobs will become more challenging. Whatever they are, the most important skill you will need is knowledge about how to learn quickly on the job. The world is changing so fast you won't be able to rely much on anything you've learned here - except how to learn.

But even that how-to-learn knowledge won't be enough. You'll also need another sort of knowledge. It's the hardest to learn. I'm referring to self-knowledge.

In order to make wise choices about your life's work and do that work well, you will need to know who you are, and be able to imagine the kind of person you want to become.

Gaining that kind of self-knowledge often comes from failing - crashing headlong into the wall of whatever personal insatiable need you may have that gets in the way. It may be the need for approval or for power or for respect or for money or for working so hard you martyr yourself and burn out. Regardless of what it is, you'll keep crashing into that wall again and again — until you finally realize it's there, and you've got to tear it down or find a way around it or over it.

My second job in Washington was working in the Justice Department. At the start I was fired with enthusiasm. At the end I was just fired. They didn't say I was fired. They just said I wasn't doing the job quite as they had hoped, and it might be best if I looked for something else to do. That was a nice way of saying I was fired.

I had met my wall. I'd taken the job for the wrong reason, because it looked prestigious. And for the first few months everything seemed to be coming my way. That's a warning sign. When everything's coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane. I got a bit carried away with myself, to tell the truth. Didn't pay attention to the work I was supposed to be doing or the relationships I needed to be building with my colleagues. I didn't know myself well enough to do the job well.

As a college graduate you have the tools to gain new knowledge. Yet it's self-knowledge that's in short supply, and that is what you will need most in order to make a success of your life.

Which brings me back to why I really left my job as Secretary of Labor. I wasn't fired. In fact, I think we accomplished a great deal. I loved that job. But I was working so hard I saw almost nothing of my family, including two young boys steaming toward adolescence. If I had not left that job and returned home I'd have missed their last years at home. Teenagers are like clamshells: Hard outside and shut tight most of the time, but when they open up for an instant you can see the beauty and vulnerability inside. But you don't know when they're going to open up. And if you're not there when they do, you might as well be on the moon, or at a meeting in the White House. Thankfully, I was there when the clamshells opened because I had returned home.

Now, don't get me wrong: Being good at your job and being a good parent aren't always in opposition. Try for both, with gusto. But be truthful with yourself. There may come times when one or another aspect of your lives has to take priority, and when those times come you'll need to know it. That's the difference between knowledge about things and knowledge about yourself. I'm not a wise man, but on this particular occasion I made a wise choice.

I could have spoken to you today about the great challenges our society faces - climate change, terrorism, widening inequality, the fragility of our democracy. I hope some of you will play a role in meeting these challenges. But the biggest challenges you are likely to meet will begin closer to home - finding work that's meaningful to you, giving your family the attention it deserves, and knowing yourself well enough to do both reasonably well. If you can meet these challenges, you have a fair chance of helping to heal the world.

So members of the Cal State Fullerton Class of 2008, go forth and use the knowledge you have gained here. Have full, prosperous, balanced lives, and make the world better too, if you can. Above all, get to know yourself, and be true to the very best in yourself.

May your work be filled with meaning. May your days be filled with purpose. May your lives be filled with joy.