My wife graduated from college this weekend. It was — as it should be — a very big deal, and we’re all very proud of her. For the last 26 months I have watched this woman run a household, raise three children (including an infant son), and work two and sometimes three part-time jobs, all while going to school full-time and non-stop. It’s been quite a feat. This wasn’t her first pass at it. Over the course of our 16-year marriage, she has tried to go back to school on at least two other occasions, mostly early in our marriage when things were somewhat easier. She’s also gone through a number of different training courses to obtain fitness certifications and things like that, but getting that college degree was always the goal, and until now it had always eluded her.
You see, going to school is designed to be a primary job. When you’re 18 and basically unattached to much in the world, it’s easier to devote the kind of time and attention and energy that college demands. And while we all know people who drank their way through school, most of the people you know with college degrees had periods of their education where they had to devote themselves 24/7 to their schoolwork. Not the kind of attention a mother of three with part-time jobs can easily devote.
And yet, with everything else going on in our lives, my wife only had brief periods this go-around where she struggled with those demands. In truth, there was never really any doubt that she was going to finish this time. On the other hand, we’ve talked about if she had gone to college when she was 19, and she thinks she probably wouldn’t have finished her degree then, as she hadn’t at any of the intervening points along the way.
So what was different this time? Sure, she’s more mature and feels a greater sense of responsibility because of the children, but that’s not really the difference-maker. For her, it was all about passion. You see, over the course of the past decade, she had the opportunity to watch two of her grandparents deteriorate and eventually die, and she was exposed to many different health-care scenarios for the end of life. From that, she realized that she felt a calling and a real passion for working with the elderly and seeing that the ends of their lives had meaning and dignity. That realization gave a focus and a purpose to her education (health-care administration, by the way), which helped keep her on track even when the workload was crushing.
Strange that it took her until she was 40 to realize this passion? Not really. What do you think the whole “mid-life crisis” is all about? Many, many people head out into the world when they’re young with visions of grandeur and importance and the world at their fingertips. For some, this is exactly how life turns out; but for many, and I daresay most, this never becomes reality. In many cases that realization leads to Thoreau’s “life of quiet desperation,” which they try to stave off with hot rods and family upheaval. That’s no way to live.
Which is why a couple weeks back, I counseled recent graduates to pursue their passions with everything they’ve got. I have seen it with my wife: passion will carry you through the tough patches and the frustrations and will help you stay focused on the big picture. And if you don’t feel much of a passion for anything right now, that’s okay — most of your classmates don’t either. I think we adults do a real disservice to students when we present college as the only acceptable matriculation out of high school. So rather than heading straight off to college (because it’s the next logical step) to accumulate debt and frustrations, why not take a year “off” to try to find you passion? Work a job, earn an internship, volunteer — any of these will teach you about yourself and maybe, just maybe, show you what your real passion is. Because the easiest way to get out of “quiet desperation” later in life is to not build it for yourself right now. You won’t have to wait until you’re 40, er, 34, like my wife did to find her passion — you can spend the next 15 years living that passion! And that’s a much better way to live.
Michael Alcorn is a music teacher and fitness instructor who lives in Arvada with his wife and three children. He graduated from Alameda High School and University of Colorado-Boulder.