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Take Five: 10 Things I Wish I'd Known When I Graduated from College

by Mary McHugh

When I went to my 50th reunion from Wheaton College (the one in Massachusetts), the graduation speaker gave a wonderful speech about all the things he wished he had known when he graduated from college 30 years before. 

I’ve been thinking about that, and came up with a list of my own:

1)  I wish I had gone to a therapist in my twenties instead of my fifties to learn about self-defeating patterns that were keeping me from getting where I wanted to go.  When I finally found a really good therapist at the age of 54 after my daughter became blind due to diabetes, I learned much more than how to cope with this devastating turn in our lives. My relationship with my husband and my other daughter improved. Everything got better.  I go back for refresher courses from time to time and always learn new ways to get through this life.

2)  I wish someone had emphasized the importance of figuring out the little things that give me great pleasure and told me to program them into my life every week instead of making lists of Things To Do, that were productive, but not necessarily fun.  I’m not sure I knew that I was allowed to do things just for the fun of it, especially when I was raising my children and my life was planned around them and my husband.  If I had it to do over again, I would make a date with myself once a week and find someone to speak French to, take a course in play writing, learn to tap dance, do a jigsaw puzzle, or stay in a bubble bath all afternoon with a book until the children came home.

3) I devoutly wish someone had taught me how to manage money. Money is such a mystery to me and always has been.  My eyes glaze over when somebody starts talking about money markets, mutual funds, and all that stuff, and I realize now how vital it is to make that as important a part of my knowledge as how to replace that rubber ball in the toilet tank. 

4) I wish Julia Cameron had written her book, “Artist’s Way,” when I graduated from college instead of a few years ago. (She wasn’t even alive then.)  Her book changed my life, and one of the main ways it did that was to persuade me to write three pages every morning when I wake up. It’s not a journal, it’s not a diary, it’s a sort of stream of consciousness brain drain that gets rid of all those annoying little thoughts that keep you from focusing on what you want to accomplish that day, next week, next month and next year. 

5)  I wish I had known that there is a universal force that kind of pushes me along when I ask for help. I used to be an agnostic who didn’t really believe there was a higher power up there. Then when I wanted to write a book about my life growing up with a brother with mental retardation, for instance, my best friend decided to become an agent just at that time, after writing eight books herself. She found me an excellent publisher and a healthy advance. Things like that happen time and again until I no longer think of them as coincidences.

6)  I wish I had known that you can’t expect the people closest to you to act in ways you would like them to act unless you spell it out for them.  I thought you could just expect people to act in the same ways you would act in similar situations.  Doesn’t work out that way.  A man who can’t say, “You look tired. Let me cook and do the dishes today,” spontaneously, will do all that if you specifically ask him to.  Otherwise, he hasn’t a clue.  Which reminds me of a story I heard the other day I think you’ll like:  A man came home from work and the house was a disaster area.  Dishes in the sink. Half-eaten food on the table. Books and toys all over the floor.  Beds unmade and his wife upstairs reading.  “What happened here?” he asked.  “Everything is a mess.” His wife said, “You know how you always come home and say, ‘What do you do all day?’  Well, today I didn’t do it.” 

7)  I wish someone had told me that I should make physical activities as integral a part of my life as intellectual pursuits so I wouldn’t think of them as exercise and therefore a chore now.  I wish  hiking, biking, swimming, dancing, kayaking and tennis were so much a part of my existence that I would actually miss them if I didn’t do them.  Instead, I force myself to walk or go to an aerobics class at the gym. They should all be enjoyable, fun, as important as lunch with a friend. 

8)  I wish I had known that everything changes. That there isn’t one single thing in your life that stays the same no matter how much you count on it.  Buddhism teaches that suffering is caused by attachment. I always resisted this idea because I like being attached to friends and my children and my grandchildren, to Paris and Cape Cod and New York City.  But since everything changes, you can’t always count on looking at the rooftops of Paris because there are now tall buildings in Montparnasse.  You can’t count on children living nearby because they have their own lives to live. Grandchildren change into teenagers who still love you but don’t exactly share your interests (unless you still play baseball and basketball). Change is a fact of life, but I still wish some things would stay the same.

9)  I wish I had known when I was 20 that being a writer is a perfectly valid way to earn a living, that it’s not some kind of hobby to do on the side.  When the personnel woman at Time Magazine told me they didn’t hire women as writers in 1950, I should have kept looking until I found some place that did hire women as writers.  Look at all the women who persevered and went to law school and medical school when the world discouraged them at every turn of the road.  Harvard didn’t even accept women into their law school until 1952!

10)  And finally, I wish someone had told me how much fun it would be to be 72.  That I didn’t have to worry about getting older, that in some ways, it’s the best part so far, except for the years raising my children.

E-mail me about the things you wish someone had told you when you were young. I’d love to hear about them.

Happy New Year to all of you.

 

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