Blog #8

Quitting college and achieving a diploma, as well as being labeled as a college graduate has its differences. In the first paragraph of Brooks’ article, “It’s Not About You” starts off with the topic of success and middle-aged graduates, as for Graham’s article, “Confessions of a Quit Addict”, Graham goes right into explaining how she had given up on her academics all together. If you were to compare the individuals Brooks’ wrote about and Graham is that the only thing that is not foreign to one other is how they all had struggles and hardships. David Brooks makes the argument of how a college graduate should follow their dreams and Graham illustrates a picture of how she only achieved real happiness and success after she learned her lesson from quitting and giving up.

To speak from a personal standpoint, I have always had the thought of abandoning my responsibilities more often than I should, which is why I can relate to Barbara Graham’s words more than the next person. Growing up is a less intense example or version of Graham’s article because in the end she learned from her mistakes and grew as a person and rarely thought about looking back, “And though sometimes I miss the rush of cutting loose- and, God knows, the impulse still arises- I’ve learned that for the most part, it’s impossible to travel deep and wide at the same time.” Thankfully she never went back to her toxic actions. In a certain aspect, that is how it works for young adults like myself. We are all attempting to find our way, even through all the hardships that may occur.

In the Brooks’ article, the message and tone is divergent from Graham’s. Brooks’ describes how the younger generations are influenced to chase their life goals, “the graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy.” Mostly all the adults and role models in my life encourage me to do the opposite of Graham’s prior actions to the end, quitting. This article influenced me to learn more about my independence, act upon my responsibilities so I can refer to myself as a college graduate. I want Brooks’ to target his words towards me one day, an elderly graduate who only cares about that. David Brooks’ words throughout his writing is mostly positive until his last few sentence, “The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.” I find this very condescending to what he wrote about earlier on, although those scarce words did catch my attention.

In conclusion to linking these two articles together, comparing them both is not what spoke to me, but to find the key words and lessons is what I decided to take from the two authors.