Get Career Fit, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 10 Advance

When will you celebrate and what will you do next?

‘While living, I want to live well.’

Geronimo

It’s standard practice in the United States to award an honorary degree to commencement speakers at colleges and universities. Yet in 2009 Arizona State University decided not to offer the award to then US President Barack Obama. The reason? A spokesperson for the university explained: ‘It’s normally awarded to someone who has been in their field for some time … Considering that the president is at the beginning of his presidency, his body of work is just beginning.’⁵⁰ 

President Obama referenced this incident in his commencement address:

Now, in all seriousness, I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t yet achieved enough in my life. First of all, Michelle concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things that I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home.

But more than that, I come to embrace the notion that I haven’t done enough in my life; I heartily concur; I come to affirm that one’s title, even a title like President of the United States, says very little about how well one’s life has been led — that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, always more to learn, and always more to achieve.⁵¹

This from someone who has been a lawyer, author, state legislator, US senator and president, yet even he knows there’s more he can do!

It’s lovely to think that once you’ve made it ...