Like everyone else, I'm listening to the "You're Not Special" commencement speech. It's running on YouTube in the background as I write this post. I loved this interview with David McCollough Jr. on CBS. He explains that kids, especially privileged kids, are too coddled and self absorbed and that a good life comes from selflessness. In the interview, he adds that kids are worse off than five years ago, because electronic media has diminished attention spans and concerned kids with stupid things.

Recently, I wrote that good parents bring about all sorts of unintended consequences, including segregation and inequality. Good parents also make their kids too self centered, fill them with unrealistic expectations, and, ultimately, make them unhappy.  

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.  You'll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-quite an active verb, "pursuit"-which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube.  The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life.  Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil.  Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem.