C'est la vie! (Friday 03 August 2007)

"REAL LIFE IS ALL I KNOW."

"Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You'll walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There'll be hundreds of people with the same degree; there will be thousands doing what you want to do for a living. But you'll be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Not just your life at a desk, in a car, or at the computer - the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts, but also your soul. People don't talk about the soul much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resumé than to craft a spirit. But a resumé is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke.

Here's my resumé: I'm a good mother to three children. I've tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I'm a good friend to my husband. I'm a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there'd be nothing to say to you today, because I'd be a cardboard cut-out. I'd be mediocre at my job if those other things weren't true.

You can't be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. Get a life - a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, a bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch dogs at play.

Get a life in which you're not alone. Find people you love and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it's work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you're generous. And realise that life is the best thing ever and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you don't do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived."

Extracts from a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at a graduation ceremony

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