Advice to graduates: Seek work-life harmony, not balance

If I were to give a graduation speech, It would go like this:

Welcome, graduates. I would like to prepare you for this next stage of life with some counsel you might not want to hear.

If you want to have a career rather than a job, forget about work-life balance. There is no scale to calibrate. You might have work-life harmony, which is recognizing at different times in your life, you will have to work harder at the expense of other values, and at other times, you can choose to prioritize something other than work. But it is hard to advance in a career by doing the one without the other.

Over the next several years, you need to spend them introducing yourself to yourself. You’ve spent most of your life seeing yourself through the eyes of others and through your interpretations of what those eyes are seeing. All this has done is move you further from your core. If you don’t introduce yourself to yourself, you will spend the next several years moving even further from who you are and who you want to be. You’ll end up winning a race you never wished you entered.

Understand yourself through contemplation and, maybe, therapy. But the therapy should focus on finding out who you are and what is important to you, rather than spending endless hours discussing parts of your past you will never be able to change.

As you learn more about yourself, be generous. Give some of your time to causes that are important to you. If there isn’t anything you’re interested in, then you are probably a bit self-absorbed. Make charity part of your regular budget. Giving money to others creates a tacit acknowledgment that you feel you have enough, regardless of what you have.

Be respectful of others, no matter their position. The only way to believe no one is above you is to believe no one is below you. If you look down on others, you will inevitably look down on yourself. You can also admire someone without putting them on a pedestal.

Forgive for good. It doesn’t help you to hold on to the perceived wrongs done to you. You might not wish to have relationships with people because they impact you negatively, but don’t wish them ill. And forgive yourself. Explore what you wish you would have done differently or would have gone differently, but don’t judge them.

You might have your degree, but your education is just beginning. Make it matter.

Spend your life wisely.

Ross Levin is the founder of Accredited Investors Wealth Management in Edina. He can be reached at ross@accredited.com.