Several years ago, I was asked to be a graduation speaker. Today, my son graduates from college, the last of my three children to do so. I’ve dusted off and boiled down that speech, and turned it into the advice I offer him on this special day.
As a newspaper editor, I’m someone who tells — and oversees the telling — of stories for a living.
In my work, I have the privilege of sharing with people the important stories of our time from a national and local perspective.
We’re in an age where more people crave more information than ever before. The stories we all hear and tell have never been more important.
Nothing is more important to a culture, a family, a company and even a university than the stories people tell about it. Though they may be a Tweet or a comment on Facebook or a video on our phone, we are defined by the stores we tell — whether funny, sad, inspiring or emotional. And in an age of massive amounts of stories and information, the things we tell our stories about — a difficult class or an epic road trip — those stories have never been a stronger signal of what’s important to us, what shapes us and what we value.
This graduation day will become a story you will tell, and that story will become ingrained in your memory of the day and will remind you of how you felt about it.
And so today, I urge you to tend to your own, vital story — that story that will become the tale of your life. There is no more important story, no story that you are more obliged to author with care.
As an editor and father, I’m compelled to offer a little guidance in writing that story.
First, let me acknowledge that your story appears to be off to a good start. You’ve certainly authored a couple of impressive early chapters.
And the characters in your story have been a good group as well. The characters you’ve spent these last four years with shaped your story and contributed vital parts to it. And as any writer knows, good characters — those with personalities that you love and with emotions with which you connect — they’re hard to find.
Of course, the next chapter likely requires you to leave these characters behind, to recognize their part in your story, however vital and fulfilling, is mostly over. That’s not easy. The hardest point in any great story is when a character we love is written out. I know I’m still not over the part when Bambi’s mom dies in the famous Disney movie.
But don’t worry, other characters will arrive, whether you’re ready for them or not. As your story develops, the characters get harder to understand and often don’t fit as neatly into the narrative you’ve planned.
But welcome them still. Characters are the heart of a great story, and, of course, you ought to commit to your story being a great one. All worthwhile stories have good guys and bad guys. And so these characters may come along as bosses or rivals or competitors or partners. And some will become friends — and perhaps a lifelong partner, which is the most treasured character in any personal story.
Each character, as we know, shapes the story somehow and changes the course of its plot.
And so tend carefully to the qualities of the characters you invite into your story. At times, you’ll have little choice but to put your story in their hands. It’s your story, after all, and you don’t want them running it off somewhere it doesn’t belong. Because there are stories that get you on the evening news or in the newspaper with an unflattering picture.
I have much experience with such stories and their characters. No one ever starts out with that in mind.
But that gets us to the vital point. Never forget that the most important character in your story is you. That doesn’t mean you’ll always be at the center of every scene. But we all have a favorite character in familiar stories that inspires us. And we know the things we love and admire about that character. I urge you to be that kind of character. And it is your story, so you get to decide.
As you compose your story, don’t worry about whether you’re creative enough. You don’t have to invent character traits; I can let you in on some that have held up through all of time.
Here’s one: commitment. We all love a character with commitment. That character with unflagging loyalty to their goal or ambition. Whether they have a desert to cross, an ocean to sail, a mountain to climb or a prison to escape, we like our characters devoted to their cause, and unswerving in their actions. So be that way. Know what you want, and what you care about it. Make it something huge and important — and far off in the distance. Craft a life story that points toward that goal each and every day. Never lose sight of it.
And remember that great characters in great stories, whether Ulysses or Super Man, are guided by their integrity.
In all great stories, it’s not just what our hero does, it is how he or she does it. We demand that they do it with grace and with style, of course — but mostly we want them to do it with integrity. They do the right thing, even when they think no one is watching — because someone always is. Our heroes listen to that little voice in their head; it tells them what the right thing to do is.
The best and enduring characters always act with integrity. From the Bible to “Huckleberry Finn,” from soap operas to reality shows, integrity remains the most crucial, yet scarcest of qualities. So when in doubt, when your plot lines thicken and get confusing, when the characters in your story seem to have drifted from their moorings, when the outcome of your story suddenly seems threatened, make sure you’re the character whose actions are guided by integrity. That choice, as proven in virtually every story through the ages, never comes out badly.
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