Adventure

Dear Son (or Daughter):

The summer of 1974 was a pivotal moment in American history.  The United States was one year away from exiting Vietnam. Watergate was coming to a close. For the first time in American history, a sitting president resigned from office.

But another story unfolded in August that caught the nation’s attention.  A 24-year-old French high-wire artist, Philippe Petit, captivated New York City when he spent 45 minutes walking nearly a quarter of a mile above ground between the Twin Towers of the old World Trade Center. Thousands of people watched from below in complete astonishment.

Fifty years earlier, when a reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he replied, “Because it is there.”  Like Mallory, Petit did what he did because the Twin Towers were there.  Unlike Mallory, he lived to talk about his adventure.

Adventure is a great word originating from the Latin adventurus, which means “about to happen.”  It is a word that I remember hearing used twice over the last several years.  Adventure is no longer part of our common lexicon.  Hopefully it is just on a sabbatical.

In a couple of days we will be welcoming new students to the University of Dubuque.  In our case, 620 students from 42 states and 28 countries will be sitting beside their parents or guardians.  The students among them will be doing their best to look at ease, though their insides will be full of turmoil.  Parents will be shell-shocked, hardly able to believe that this moment has come.  Yes, it has come too quickly.

But there’s another way to look at this moment in your life.  It is adventurus—a new beginning about to come.  If you choose to embrace this adventure as a mountain to be climbed or buildings to be crossed, you will make discoveries that you can’t possibly imagine. 

Professor Benson will nurture a love of Shakespeare; Professor Supple Bartels will help you to overcome your fear of public speaking.  If you’re lucky, Professor Mudalige-Jayawickrama will share her fascinating research into Orchids and Professor Garfield, and his best “seconds,” Professor Barland and Coach Elsbernd, will invite you to several trips abroad in exciting places like Spain, Turkey, Greece and Ireland.  And, though I don’t know how, Professor Munshower will keep you engaged in the subject of economics. 

If I could reset the undergraduate educational experience in America today, I would begin by asking you one question at the end of your first year of study.  That question is this:  “How have you learned to love learning?”

Understand that there is no correct answer in responding to my question, but the type of response gives me a clue as to whether learning is a task or an adventure.  Learning as a task is pretty much joyless, bordering on drudgery.  If that’s where you are, you should think about taking some time away from school. Learning as adventure, as if one can’t wait to experience what is about to happen, is special. 

This kind of learning is infectious.  It opens new worlds and it broadens horizons.  This kind of learning is a gift, because it will set the tone for how you live the rest of your life.  It will put you on a course to identify the intersection between your passion and the world’s need.  We call that your vocation.  Identify that destination, and two things will happen:  1) you’ll never work a day in your life, and 2) you will begin to embrace your life as the adventure it is intended to be.

Love, Dad