Advice to Graduates (and everyone else)
“So: What do I regret? Being poor from time to time? Not really. Working terrible jobs, like ‘knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?’ (And don’t even ASK what that entails.) No. I don’t regret that. Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked? And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months? Not so much. Do I regret the occasional humiliation? Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl? No. I don’t even regret that. But here’s something I do regret…” If you only read one thing today, read the advice George Saunders gave to some graduates. Trust me.