Jodi’s Journal: A message to the class of 2020

May 16, 2020

Normally, I write for a business audience.

Today, if that’s you, I will ask you to forward this on my behalf to anyone you know who marks a graduation this year, because I’m writing this one for the class of 2020.

If that’s you, 2020 graduate, and you’re in high school, then you and I have something in common.

You were born at the same time I became a full-time journalist. I realized recently that we have written our stories in parallel – you through your childhood and me through a career that has taken me directions I never imagined, now to my role as a business owner navigating a new model in my industry.

If you’re a member of the class of 2020 reading this as a soon-to-be-college graduate, you and I also have something in common.

My college class was the first to graduate after Sept. 11, 2001 – the last major event to shake and shape our nation and leave those of us entering the workforce unsure of what kind of world awaited us.

I don’t know about you, graduates, but I’m kind of a planner. I like to have an idea of what’s ahead, and I like to be prepared. My day-to-day business revolves around a schedule of six to eight stories I’m reasonably sure we plan to publish each day.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, that schedule instantly became irrelevant. I had to set aside stories that were ready to be published, because other stories had to take their place. For weeks, we started each day knowing we would publish six or eight stories – but rarely knowing what the topic of any of them would be until the day unfolded.

That’s a little overwhelming, stressful, even scary. But we also knew we had the skills to tell those unknown stories, the work ethic to put in the hours it would take and the commitment to our community to do this rapidly changing job.

Your plans most likely got turned upside down the same way. And in many ways, to be honest, I just feel equal parts awful for you and proud of you. But I also know that while these past few months have been an extreme example of how we never know what life will bring, this won’t be the last time you or I find ourselves needing to throw out the plan.

I decided on a career in journalism in high school shortly after I heard Anna Quindlen speak. She’s an author and a journalist who also happens to give some incredible commencement speeches. I sometimes reread them when I need good advice.

So I wanted to share with you a bit from the most recent Quindlen commencement speech I could find – to graduates at Washington University in 2017 – which happens to be especially appropriate now.

She said to the graduates:

“What are the public names you recall, sitting there, of those people who did exactly what was considered the right thing, who followed the template, who met expectations? You cannot come up with one of them. Because the people we know, the people we admire, the people whose names we carve into the cornices of buildings and see on the cover of books are deviants in the best sense of that term.

“Jane Austen threw out the plan for a well‑read regency‑era woman. Frank Lloyd Wright threw out the plan for a young architect of his time. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Enrico Fermi, Lin‑Manuel Miranda, Martin Luther King, Marie Curie, Pablo Picasso, Toni Morrison, they all threw out the plan. The right answer was safe; the wrong answer, the one no one else came up with or followed or believed in, was transformational.”

So you might have thrown out the plan for the traditional graduation. The prom. The open house. The spring sports season. The freshman year. The first job.

In their place, there’s a chance to create experiences and start your future in ways that are uniquely yours. This is not easy. Easy is following tradition, taking your place in line, doing things the way they’ve always been done.

But when you throw out the plan, amazing things can happen. When you allow yourself to see how you can approach the world differently, it can make all the difference in the world. I could tell you how I’ve done it throughout my life, but I can’t tell you how to do it because that’s all you.

I am confident, though, that if you reflect on your experiences, your preparation, your character and your passions, you’re going to figure it out. You will start, as I did in recent months, not knowing what the story will be, but figuring it out along the way and doing your best to write it.

Someday, possibly any day now, some of us in business will receive a resume from some of you applying for a job.

On it, you will include your graduation year.

And, at least speaking for myself, when we see that “2020” – whether it’s this year or 20 years from now – it will mean something. It will be mean I’m looking at a person who knows what it’s like to have to throw out the plan.

And if I’m the one interviewing you, I might ask about that moment in time. When you threw out the 2020 plan, what took its place? Was it something that helped you grow, added to your fulfillment in life or gave the world something new or needed? Do that, now and always, and you will build not just a career but a life that is uniquely yours and infinitely greater for those you touch.

Congratulations, class of 2020. By the way, I refuse to call you the “COVID class” or the “quarantine class.” That’s not what’s going to define you. It will be whatever you do next. And I can’t wait to see what that is.

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Jodi’s Journal: A message to the class of 2020

Class of 2020: Embrace what can happen when you throw out the plan.

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