Bill Clinton's Advice for Grads Touches Boomers, Too

I was in New Haven on Sunday to celebrate my niece Lesley's graduation from Yale, but I left contemplating what I and my fellow boomers could do in our second acts to help make the world a better place.

That's because the keynote speaker at Class Day was former President Bill Clinton, who made us think, in addition to making us laugh by threatening to put on a do-rag to honor the Yalie tradition of wearing funny hats to the event. ("How could anybody worry about the future of the world when it's in your hands?" he teased. "Anybody with this kind of judgment and head gear will have no problem solving all the other challenges.")

Here's a YouTube video of his remarks.

Whether you admired him or loathed him as president, it's hard to deny that Clinton is an iconic boomer, and not just because he was the first in his generation to reach the White House. Since leaving office in 2001, he's become arguably the most influential ex-president in history. His accomplishments include negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to drastically reduce the price of HIV treatments for millions of impoverished people in other countries. And as leader of the Clinton Global Initiative, he's brought together business, nonprofit and government leaders from around the world to work on pressing problems such as climate change and a dearth of economic opportunities for women, and he raised $60 billion in commitments to actually get things done. It's hard to think of a more impressive midlife second act.

Clinton targeted his advice at Yale's young graduates, whom he hoped would apply their talents to improving the common good, rather than just for self-gain. (Not that these compulsive overachievers needed the nudge--as undergrads, they did everything from operating a medical clinic in Nepal to helping people with HIV in other countries grow their own food.) He reminded them that all humans are far more alike than they are different. "You got a pretty good deal out of that one-tenth to one-half of a percent of genetic makeup that was different," he said. Ergo, Yale's twentysomething brain trust has a responsibility to help lift up the rest of the planet.

But in a larger sense, Clinton could be speaking to boomers as well. We had the luck to grow up during the greatest period of mass prosperity that any nation in history has ever known and to have access to education and economic opportunities far exceeding any previous American generation. Additionally, we benefit from medical advances and lifestyle changes that make it possible for us to remain active longer, at a level that our ancestors scarcely could have imagined. We have access to technology and can travel to places that might have made them envious as well. It seems only fair that we should be similarly obligated to do something positive with these gifts, and try to make a contribution to the world that's at least on the scale of the riches we've received.

Clinton also warned young graduates that Americans have to change our ways because the world could no longer support great masses of people who lived with little thought to how they affected other humans and the planet. All of the world's complex problems, he said, could be distilled down to three woes: "It is too unstable, it is too unequal, and it is too unsustainable." Thus, he urged them each day to evaluate every choice they made on the basis of whether it would help in some way to improve stability, equality, and sustainability. That's such a simple, clear mindful mantra that even Thich Nhat Hanh might be tempted to try it out. But it's one that would make even more difference if were practiced by boomers, with their vast power to shape trends, whether it's in the checkout line, on Facebook or at the voting booth.

Finally, Clinton advised Yale graduates to defy American society's increasing ideological polarization and the urge to hate the other side, whatever and whoever it turns out to be. As the Yale Daily News article on his speech summarized:

That's a point that's even more applicable for boomers. In my view, we're perhaps the most intensely competitive generation. We grew up hearing the sports philosophy "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing"--which actually was coined by 1950s UCLA football coach Red Sanders, a member of the previous generation--and devoted a lot of our energy and drive to building the most dominant companies, driving the flashiest cars and piling the most bacon and cheese on our quarter-pound burgers. But it's time for us too to look at life in a different way. On this website, you'll see plenty of examples of boomers who've shoved the big "We're Number One!" foam glove into the back of their closets and are learning to find ways for everybody to share in some part of their victories.

But there's one thing that Bill Clinton and the rest of us can learn from those young Yale graduates. There's a certain joyous shedding of self-consciousness that comes from wearing a silly hat. We all need to go out and get a cheesehead, traffic-cone bike helmet, or plush squid to make our lofty mission a little more fun.