I got written up at work today, in the good sense of the word. I was working on another unit, the geriatric psych unit, and the nurse that I was sharing the day with wrote an e-mail to my supervisor letting her know that I was "a pleasure to work with." All it takes to exceed my peers' expectations at work is to have a rudimentary grasp of heeding direction. $80,000 and a summa cum laude, and I am now heralded for my ability to make sure people make it to the bathroom in time.
From the very moment I drove onto the college campus I was greeted with banners proclaiming the "World Changers" mantra. Throughout my tenure there I heard Jeremiah 29:11 quoted enough times to drum it into my permanent psyche. Yet out of the IWU bubble I find myself echoing the sentiments of the main character from "Quarterlife:"
"A sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of it."
And then I found this line in a professor's blog from a conversation he had with another former student:
"IWU taught me how to change the world but it failed to teach me something more important—how to fail. I never failed at anything in high school or college. I assumed I was “awesome” because my parents and professors always said I was. Awesome shouldn’t fail, so I left college presuming the world was waiting for me and I would be welcomed as I brought my enthusiasm to deal with the world’s problems. There was no parade when I arrived."
So while I have no great insights to share and no pretty bow to tie around this life lesson yet, I take at least a little pleasure knowing that I am not alone. Not alone in my peer group at large or in the experiences of fellow graduates. We all missed the parade.
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