This
past weekend I was in conversation with a senior friend. She had applied to various
graduate-school fellowships but had found all her applications rejected. Life
after Yale seemed a disconcerting world of uncertainty. She did not know what
she was going to be doing and where she would be six weeks from now. Understandably,
she was nervous and saddened.
I
think though that my friend and other seniors, and the rest of us, who are
confused and anxious about our careers—certainly all of us are—can take comfort
and inspiration from the stories of at least two remarkable individuals here at
Yale. They, to be sure, faced similar dilemmas as we do today when they were in
college and their early careers. They took, however, what to us may seem unexpected
and even irresponsible decisions, which I think would be useful for us to
consider. For, surely, their decisions seem to have served them well.
Ambassador
Marc Grossman, who made his first public appearance at Yale the week before
spring break as the Jackson Institute’s newly appointed Kissinger Senior
Fellow, is famous for his work as a diplomat. Most recently, he was the US
Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (S/SRAP). It wasn’t planning
ahead his long-term career, however, that led him on a path to eventually become
the nation’s top diplomat for a crucial region of US foreign policy. Instead, it
was, as I found out over a conversation with him while working at the S/SRAP
office last spring, “the desire to see the Taj Mahal.”
As
a freshly graduating Foreign Service officer, Grossman had the option of selecting
the region he wanted to work in first. He had wanted to see the Taj Mahal so
India was the obvious choice. There was, however, no opening at the time in the
Indian mission. The Pakistan mission, however, had available spots and being in
Pakistan was the closest he could be to the Taj Mahal while not being in India.
And so he went to Pakistan. He is often asked today, he recounted during our
conversation, whether he had strategically chosen to make Pakistan his first
diplomatic stop so that, one day, he could be the top diplomat to the country
and the region. His response was always, “Give me a break.” It was simply a
sense of adventure and excitement and the desire to see an architectural marvel
that took him to Pakistan. And that is how his career began.
Professor
John Gaddis’ career, too, as a group of us learned over dinner with the
professor before break, has benefited from spontaneity. As a senior at the
University of Texas, Gaddis, famous now of course for his books on the Cold War
and the official biography of George F. Kennan, did not really know what he
wanted to do. But then he took a history class and submitted the term paper. Much
to his surprise, his professor told him the paper was publishable. As an
underclassman, Gaddis had tried his hand at the things that seemed important to
study, math and science, but found himself uninspired and unsuccessful; as a
senior, all of a sudden, he discovered that studying history was something he
was not only good but also quite enjoyed.
Senior
year was coming to a close and still entirely unsure about what to do, he
decided to, well… go for a PhD in History. “It was an act of desperation,” is
how Gaddis described his decision at the dinner conversation. Nothing else
seemed to be working. And studying and writing history gave him happiness, he
found, so doing a PhD made sense. Over our dinner with him we all asked him
about this and that but Gaddis constantly returned to the same theme: Do what
makes you happy. Simple and obvious though it sounds, I do think we often
forget to chase happiness in the way we aspire to achieve other things.
The
spring semester and the academic year are coming to a close. Now more than ever
it seems necessary to know exactly what we will be doing over the summer and
after Yale—and how all of that would relate to what we want to do for the rest
of our lives. At such moments, when obsessive planning and strategizing seem
the norm and necessity, I think we would benefit by looking at Grossman’s and
Gaddis’ early careers. What is common to them is the lack of excessive
planning. They did not have it all figured out. Grossman, to make a drastic
reduction, embraced adventure and Gaddis happiness. It might even seem to our
cynical selves that they were naïve, not weighing the long-term impacts of their
decisions, the pros and cons. But they seem to have had a lot of fun and are,
well, extraordinarily successful.
We
all love certainty. We like timetables and schedules. It’s natural to do so. And
when this fellowships or that internship does not work out, our lives suddenly
seem devoid of stability and certitude. But as long as we, especially the
seniors amongst us, embrace principles such as spontaneity, adventure, and
happiness as we seek our paths ahead, I think—I hope—we should be fine.
