Choose Again

The book as a whole is a nice trip down memory lane over the last few decades, recalling the political and cultural flashpoints which once seemed like the most important things in the world. Krauthammer was politically conservative but of a genial disposition, so for the most part there was nothing abrasive about his columns. Remember when people just disagreed instead of violently disagreed?

The most striking part of the book was not the political commentary. The final section of the anthology has a few bits reflecting on how to lead a life worth living. The remarks in this section bear repeating.

First some biographical background. Krauthammer had an unusual career path, to put it mildly. He started out post-collegiate life as a psychiatrist. He went to medical school, got his degree, and went into practice. But, then one fine day when he was 30, he quit his job and began life anew writing political commentary. As Krauthammer quipped about the change in careers:

There is not very much difference: In both lines of work I spend my days studying people who suffer from paranoia and delusions of grandeur—except that in Washington they have access to nuclear weapons. Which makes the stakes higher, and the work a little more interesting.

That change in career is most noteworthy. It relates to a conversation I have with students all the time. More times than I could possibly count, I have had a conversation with a student who is tortured by indecision and angst about her future. Looking for a summer job (make that a summer internship…nobody has a mere summer job anymore), looking for a job after graduation, deciding on graduate school, planning a whole life—it is always a similar conversation. The student has no idea what to do, feels bad about not knowing what to do, agonizes about what to do. The pain of the unknown is visible.

My advice: relax. One of the little known secrets of college is that nobody knows what they want to do with their life when they are still in college. Some people think they know, but they are wrong—they don’t actually know. They may get lucky and their guess about what they wanted to do was right, but even in those cases, they didn’t really know. Until you graduate from college, you simply have no idea what life is like when you are working or living on your own.

Up through graduation, the next step in life was always known. Sophomores become juniors whether in high school or college. But at whatever point you leave school, high school or college, you suddenly embark on the great unknown. You’ve sailed off the edge of the map. There be dragons.

How do you do this? You get a job which will pay the bills, get a place to live and start plugging away at life. And then sometime between 6 and 18 months after you leave school, you start to figure out what it is you like about life, what it is you want to do. It is only after you have left school and realized there are no more summer vacations and Christmas vacations and all the free time during the week that you begin to realize what you do and do not like to spend your days doing.

And so, I tell my students, stop being so worried about this summer or your first job out of school. Just find something you think you would like to do that will pay the bills. And then go do that. You can always change your mind in a year and try something else.

Enter Krauthammer:

I never wrote a word, I never published a word before I was 30. And the reason I bring this up is because I want to speak to the young students here tonight about choice, about choosing a life.
When you are at this stage you are at right now all life is open to you. But soon you are going to suffer the agony of excellence. With so many talents and so much excellence, at one point in your life soon you’re going to have to choose. And every choice means an exclusion; every time you open a door, you’re closing a door.

It is exactly that fear of closing doors that paralyzes the modern student. Their lives have been conditioned to constantly worry about missing out. FOMO is a real disease among students. It is one of the reasons they are glued to their screens. Is there something better going on right now? Am I missing something?

Krauthammer’s advice:

The moral of the story is: Don’t be afraid to choose, and don’t be afraid to start all over if you have to. T. E. Lawrence once said, at least in the version of his life by David Lean, “Nothing is written.”
And by that he meant: Life is open, everything is choice, nothing is inevitable. So the message I have to you young people is: Don’t be afraid to choose. Choose what you love. And if you don’t love what you’ve chosen, choose again.

That is truly excellent advice. And not just for college students. For everyone. Lots of people get stuck because they think they have no choices. But you do. Nothing is written. If you don’t love what you’ve chosen, choose again.

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