Arthur C. Brooks argues that college teaches the how but not the why, leaving graduates adrift. He frames life after graduation as starting your own venture: you're the founder of your life-enterprise, and meaning comes from treating it like a startup with vision and strategy.
This is my new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. I wrote this book because I saw a need to talk about the meaning of life. Big philosophical topic, but I was hearing again and again from young adults that life felt increasingly meaningless, even fake. We see this in the numbers on depression, on anxiety, loneliness, addiction. It could be really sad and make you feel hopeless, but it doesn't have to. It turns out that when you look at the depression and anxiety that many people are suffering, it's due to a, a lack of a sense of life's meaning. For a lot of people, this comes at a time when they're graduating from school. One of the things that we learn in school is how to do lots of things. Lots of what, lots of how, but not that much why. Not the big why questions. We often think that when we go to college that the why, the meaning of things will find us, and ordinarily it doesn't. We have to go out looking for those things, and that's why I wrote this book for graduates. Commencement, well, as the word suggests, is the beginning. It's not the end of anything. Sure, it marks the end of a formal education, but it's the beginning of the rest of life, and life is a journey toward finding its meaning. The commencement of the adventure and the journey of life, that's what I like to talk about. The biggest piece of advice I like to give graduates of any university, any school really, is that they're startup entrepreneurs. They're founders of the most important enterprise they could ever undertake, which is their own lives. You incorporated. That's the startup. You have to treat it as such. You have to treat it like an entrepreneur. Your life is an exciting adventure. Understanding your entrepreneurial journey is the secret to finding happiness and meaning. But of course, you have to do it right. I've tried to gather the best ideas on how to do exactly that in my new book, "The Meaning of Your Life." This is a good graduation gift. Now that you've gotten your degree, figure out why you need to use it in your life and the life of other people.
