In 2005, the late novelist David Foster Wallace delivered the commencement address at Kenyon College in Ohio. In his speech, Wallace takes the popular notion that a liberal arts education teaches students “how to think” and looks at its implications for everyday life. He suggests that an essential step to leading a meaningful life is to recognize that we choose where to focus our thoughts. More importantly, we can (and should) question the “default settings” in our thinking which tell us things like “I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.”
To illustrate his point, Wallace talks about the “boredom, routine and petty frustration” which are inevitable aspects of adult life. He asks his audience to imagine themselves at the end of a typical work day, tired and hungry, visiting a supermarket to buy food for dinner. In vivid detail, he describes the traffic on the crowded highways, the malfunctioning shopping carts, the long checkout lines, and the slow drive home through more traffic. He describes the irritated, impatient thoughts which are all-too-common during such times: “the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home.” He ruminates on “how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line,” how frustrated one can feel seeing so many “huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV’s… burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas” driven by “inconsiderate and aggressive drivers.” He notes how quickly such thoughts can broaden to include “how our children’s children will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are.”
Then, Wallace presents some alternative ways of thinking about the same situation. He considers that some of the people in SUV’s may be survivors of bad auto accidents who only feel safe driving larger vehicles, or that a woman being rude in a checkout line may be exhausted from staying up all night with a terminally ill relative, or the simple “likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am.” He asserts that, although it can be hard work, we all have the choice to reject our self-centeredness and consider other possibilities. He advises his listeners that, if they can discipline their thoughts in this way, they can “experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred.”
In his speech, Wallace lays out a choice we all make many times every day: the choice to view the world either through a lens of self-centeredness or a lens of compassion. This choice is also a choice between despair and hope. In the first scenario, Wallace’s anger at the wasteful SUV’s may be justified, but it is the type of anger which leads to crippling despair rather than meaningful action. When, instead, we look at the world through a lens of compassion, we are able to make meaningful connections with our fellow human beings and imagine creative solutions to our shared problems.
When you decided to volunteer, you may have been motivated by a desire to reach out in compassion and expand your awareness. As a volunteer, you were probably exposed to one proof after another that others face challenges far greater than yours. Maintaining that awareness once your service is completed can be very challenging, but it is an essential step in staying connected to and honoring your volunteer experience. So, the next time you find yourself tempted by self-centered thinking, take some time to reflect on Wallace’s words and imagine how you might view your situation through a lens of compassion. Also, when you have the opportunity, help others develop their own compassionate ways of thinking. Reaching out to others in compassion is one of the surest paths from despair to hope.
To read more, visit Staying Connected on our website... http://www.pallotticenter.org/newsletters/stayingconnected/Vol13No1.pdf