of going down memory lane, or going back to your alma mater, whether school or college.
In 2006, writer Ann Patchett gave the commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, her alma mater.
Patchett urges these new graduates to be sure to return at some point — this, she argues, would let them reflect on the series of small choices which, as William James put it a century ago, “[spin] our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.”
Patchett writes:
Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you to another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours — long hallways and unforeseen stairwells — eventually puts you in the place you are now. Every choice lays down a trail of bread crumbs, so that when you look behind you there appears to be a very clear path that points straight to the place where you now stand. But when you look ahead there isn't a bread crumb in sight — there are just a few shrubs, a bunch of trees, a handful of skittish woodland creatures. You glance from left to right and find no indication of which way you’re supposed to go. And so you stand there, sniffing at the wind, looking for directional clues in the growth patterns of moss, and you think, What now?
Borrowing in part from great scientists and in part from great poets, Patchett advocates for embracing uncertainty as a positive force:
Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.
(and again when you look back, you see this 'not-having-any-idea-where-i'm-going' path was meant for you...)