7 Things I’ve Learned Since Graduating College

I graduated from Wheaton College 10 years ago this month. This Friday, I’ll be attending commencement ceremonies at Biola University, where I’ve had the pleasure of working for nearly seven years. I’ll be cheering on a dozen or so students who I’ve mentored, taught, employed or befriended; students who will be walking across the stage to receive their diplomas, much as I did when I was their age, a decade ago.

As I’ve reflected on how I have changed and what I have learned in the ten years since I graduated college as an undergrad, a few things come to mind. The following are some of the big learnings and key realizations I’ve come to, some sooner and some later, since May 2005. Perhaps the Class of 2015 can file these away as they set out on their post-college journeys:

1) 22-year-olds don’t have it all figured out

Perhaps the most universal and, in some sense, admirable quality of college graduates at the “prime” of their intellectual enrichment (or so they think) is a certain intellectual confidence and epistemological hubris. Though many of them look back on their cocksure freshmen selves with derision and shame, the ironic thing is they have adopted the posture again by the time they graduate, just in a different way. Graduating seniors feel “enlightened” to have grown out of many of the views of their upbringing; they see themselves as having mature, nuanced and authoritative perspectives on everything from politics to gender to Calvinism (especially Christian college graduates). But the truth is, you only know so much at 22. Some of the things I wrote and blogged about in my early twenties were far too sure of themselves. With age comes the development of a beautiful thing called intellectual humility, which opens up conversations and connections which might otherwise be closed off. The more one lives, the more one sees that wisdom is more dependent on curiosity than confidence.

2) Cynicism is mostly a waste of time

It happened to me and I see it happen to many (the majority?) of today’s Christian college undergrads: A slow, steady bubbling up of cynicism over the course of the four years from the wide-eyed summer camp frivolity of orientation week to the “I’m over it” jadedness of senior year. It’s a cynicism that arises from, among other things, the disconnect one feels between the “bubble” surreality of Christian college and the harsh realities of real life. It arises from a (healthy) questioning of ideas we assume and systems we take for granted. But when questioning (with the constructive pursuit of truth in mind) gives way to cynicism (an “I’m better than” disposition that relishes deconstruction) it becomes a problem. Trust me, get over cynicism as quickly as you can after you graduate. The world will open up to you, and with it beauty, truth and goodness, when you put cynicism aside and allow yourself to be vulnerable and teachable and curious. Plus, only other cynical people enjoy being around cynical people. So for the sake of winning friends and influencing people, put the cynical snark behind you, along with the other “childish things” Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 13.

3) It’s good to embrace discomfort

This is a lifetime struggle for most of us, but one of the most crucial truisms of life. We only grow by stepping outside of our comfort zones. College is in some sense about discomfort: learning and living in community with people who are very different; having ideas and assumptions challenged; feeling isolated from the familiar. And those are wonderful things. But once you graduate from college it can be easy to find a community that is just like you, surrounded by only the ideas you hold, and just stay there the rest of your life. While I would suggest that the first few months or even year after graduation should be on the more “comfortable” side of of the spectrum, most of your life should be lived on the edge (or in the midst) of discomfort. When we push ourselves to do what is uncomfortable, to know the Other, to not cease in our explorations, great things happen.

4) Moderation is not weakness

Everything is done to the extreme when you are 22. That stage in life is often characterized by what I call “The Pendulum Problem,” a propensity to react so extremely to one position (usually something one grew up believing) that the new position is just as problematic in the other direction. This extremism is fueled by youthful energy and “radical” passion, yet most of the time it leads nowhere. True growth, substantive change, comes when we see that balance is not compromise and moderation is not weakness. The world is always going to be more complicated and nuanced than our best efforts to understand it. Whether it be politics, theology, or consumption of culture (see my book Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty), embracing the beauty of moderation will bear much fruit.

5) Sticking with a local church is worth it

“[Do] not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some…” (Heb. 10:25). Let’s face it: One of the easiest things to neglect in college and especially after college is getting involved in a local church. Whether because it’s a hassle, the people are weird, the preacher isn’t compelling or it just feels like a vestige of times past, church is often a casualty of twentysomething life. But nothing has grown me, sustained me, and challenged me in healthy ways over the last decade more than my commitment to the local church. Beyond the community and accountability it offers (no small things), church provides a necessary big-picture reality check and rhythm that molds and shapes me in a consistent way, week after week, when so much else in my life is in flux. Twentysomething flourishing depends on having at least some consistent priorities and “rocks in your planter,” as my pastor says. The Bride of Christ, inconvenient and uncomfortable as she may be, is a mighty good rock to build your life around.

6) Proximity is (almost) everything in relationships

After college, when friends disperse and communities split, the temptation can be to focus on maintaining friendships across great distances. With social media, skype and other such things, this sort of relational maintenance can be easy. And there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m glad I have maintained profound friendships with my closest college friends, even when I’ve been thousands of miles from them for a decade now. But one unchangeable reality about relationships, no matter what happens with our digital communication capabilities, is that physical proximity matters most. I met my wife because she worked in the same building as I did. The people who matter most for me now are those who I have regular, in-person contact with. They go to my church. They come over to my house. They work alongside me. Meanwhile, older friends have become less important over the years, simply because they live far from me and I only see them occasionally. This is something to simply accept, not lament. Friendships change. New people come into your life and shape you profoundly. Proximity is worth everything.

7) Connections matter more than concepts

I am an ideas guy. I love thinking. In the years after I graduated from college ten years ago, I was all about the thought life. I read and read and read, and wrote and wrote and wrote. It was fruitful, but much of it was solitary. I still debated concepts with others, but it was usually in blog comments sections or over social media; rarely was it over a coffee or a beer. Yet I have since come to see that ideas are valuable only insofar as they facilitate connection, in two senses: connection as in connecting the dots between isolated concepts (so crucial in our digitally fragmented age); and connection as in relationships with people. The more I live, the more I see just how important it is to prioritize people over principles; individuals over ideas. This isn’t to say we should compromise on convictions or forsake truth the minute it becomes a stumbling block in a relationship. I believe truth and love can coexist. What it does mean, or has meant in my life, is this: Time spent with my family and friends, with students and mentees (again: proximity!), should be a higher priority than time spent reading blogs, scrolling through Twitter or mulling over my Next Big Idea. The world has more disconnected ideas than it knows what to do with. The world could use more substantive connections and relational commitments.

5 Books for College Graduates

It’s late May, which means that across the world, twentysomething college students are graduating or preparing to graduate: departing campuses and communities that have shaped them deeply and venturing off into the wide open spaces of adulthood in a way that is (for most of them) wholly new. The transition from college to post-college life is a significant one for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that for many college grads, being a student (that is: being forced to read things, write papers and take exams for coveted grades) is all they have known for the last 17 or so years.

For many of them, “learning” has largely been something they associate with pressure, stress, and the confines of parental control and expectation. Education is something that has been prescribed, mapped out and scheduled-to-death for them as long as they can remember. To graduate from college, then, is among other things to liberate oneself from the notion of education as bureaucracy (curriculum checklists, units, requirements, pre-reqs, to-dos, tuition payments, etc.) and to replace it with a notion of education as a choice, or (even better) education as a pleasure. That is, if it is replaced at all.

The sad reality, I suspect, is that after degrees are conferred, many graduates consider their education to be concluded. Which I guess is the expected conclusion to an educational system primarily built around preparing students for the next thing, culminating in a college degree that translates into a job. If the telos of education is practical preparation as opposed to, say, the seeking of truth and the ability to ask questions well, then of course it makes sense that once a job is attained or a lucrative skill mastered, education ceases to be a priority.

But practical training and skill development are only part of education’s purpose. Degrees are not the end goal. Education should be a lifelong pursuit. To exist is to always be on a continuum of known and unknown, discovered and undiscovered. “We shall not cease from exploration,” wrote T.S. Eliot.

That’s why, if I were to give one piece of advice to college graduates, it would be to find ways to keep the pursuit of knowledge and truth an active and lively pursuit in your life. One way to do that is to keep reading. Embrace the fact that, for the first time in many years, you can read what you want to and you won’t have to take a test or write a term paper about it. Learn to take pleasure in it. Make it a daily habit. Reading for “fun” is one of the most important things one can do to stay motivated to keep learning.

Read anything. Blogs, newspapers, magazines, tweets, billboards, poems (please read poems!), essays, journals, Wikipedia, and so on. Also, watch movies. Documentaries. Blockbusters. TV. Go to concerts. Museums. Take walks. Run. Travel. Try new restaurants. Develop an expertise or a habit. Discuss current events. Debate a friend. Sit on your front porch smoking pipes while discussing theology (or drinking scotch while discussing politics). Do any and everything you need to do in order to grow in your curiousity about the world and your desire to understand it more deeply.

Oh, and keep reading books.

On that note, I thought I’d give a few recommendations. The following are five books that have either come out recently or will be released very soon. They are books that I think are particularly inspiring and motivating for those of us who may be in a transition moment in life but still doggedly in pursuit of the good life: living, growing, thinking, believing and questioning well.

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (2011), by Alan Jacobs

I can’t think of a better book to recommend to a graduate as a first venture into the world of post-college reading. Jacobs dispels the notion that reading should be a chore, or that only highbrow Great Books are worth our time. “Read what gives you delight–at least most of the time–and do so without shame,” he argues, making the case in characteristically elegant fashion that reading can and should be something that gives us pleasure. Happily, Jacobs’ own finesse and wit as a writer makes the book itself a pleasure to read.

Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (2013), by Douglas Rushkoff

I recommend this book as a companion piece of sorts to Jacobs’ book, with emphasis on the “age of distraction” part. Rushkoff–the media theorist guru behind the Frontline documentaries Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders–more or less attempts to connect every zeitgeist-defining thing in our world today (Instagram! Zombies! Tea Partiers!) to shape a unifying theory about how we are both more and less “present” than ever. Obvious at times but mostly quite insightful, Present Shock is the sort of “magnifying glass on your world” book that is important to read every so often because it thinks deeply and critically about contemporary life and, in turn, helps the reader to do the same.

When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays (2012), by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is my favorite public intellectual. She has that rare, C.S. Lewis-style combination of being both a winsome communicator and an intellectual heavy-hitter. She knows a lot about a lot of things, and can write better than just about any other living writer, in both nonfiction and fiction (read her Pulitzer Prize-winningGilead for proof). She is awesome, and her most recent essay collection is too. When I Was a Child I Read Booksis not easy reading, to be sure. It’s challenging. But it will inspire you to want to think as broadly and as deeply as she does about a vast array of things: religion, contemporary economics, “new atheists,” science, literature, geography, Moses, hymnology, and yes, childhood reading habits.

Death by Living: Life is Meant to be Spent (2013), by N.D. Wilson

I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of this book (which comes out later this summer) and writing a review of it for Christianity Today. I can’t recommend it enough. Following and expanding upon themes in his Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl, N.D. Wilson shows that he is not only one of his generation’s most gifted and original thinkers but also one of its best writers. Featuring some of the best prose you’ll see this side of Marilynne Robinson, Death by Living is a beautiful array of memoir, theological reflection and narrative vignette that oozes wonder about the world and humility before God. For college grads cynical about things like religion, purpose-driven lives and “making a difference”–and yet unwilling to abandon these notions entirely–Death by Living is the poolside reading I recommend.

The End of Our Exploring (2013), by Matthew Lee Anderson

In a world where “dialogue” and “conversation” are buzzwords but rarely well practiced, and where doubt and questioning seem to be more about a scene than a search for truth, Matt’’s latest,The End of Our Exploring, comes as a breath of fresh air. Clearheaded, personal, witty and wise, the book presents a sensible framework for epistemology that is sorely needed today. How do we doubt, question, probe, debate, discuss and know in a more purposeful and productive manner? It’s en vogue today for young Christians to put on airs of intellectualism (you know: tweed sport coats, pipes, Jacques Ellul reading groups…), but the image of thoughtfulness is not enough. Matt’s book–a short, concise, engaging read–reminds us that actually being thoughtful is far greater (and more nuanced) than just looking the part.