Thoughts on Charlie Day’s Commencement Speech

Charlie Day, co-creator of the television sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, gave a commencement speech at his alma mater Merrimack College last weekend, and one line in particular struck me: “Don’t do what makes you happy”. Whenever I ask students what they want from life, I often get an answer that includes “I just want to be happy.” Depending on how snarky I am feeling, I may respond, “Well, marry rich and lounge by a pool all day.” But I don’t think students actually want to just be “happy”; they want to be successful. They want the kind of success they define on their terms. For Charlie Day, this was making a TV show in which he gets to entertain the masses wearing a green full-body spandex suit and putting mittens on cats. Of course, his success was not without unhappiness in setbacks and challenges. The point is that once you define your success, you shouldn’t expect every subsequent minute on your journey to achieve it to be happy ones.

I have spent the past week sifting through stories from volunteers in preparing for the NGS CrowdRise campaign. I noticed the word happy was rarely mentioned. Volunteers did, however, mention fulfillment, rewarding experiences, challenges and learning. Most spoke about things like the injustice they saw (read the interview with Camille Tacastacas about life in rural Philippians), the pain they felt when they saw a family struggle (watch the video of Laura Hanley talking about a baby with severe lead poisoning from a contaminated home) and how this motivated them to make a difference. When they made a difference – no matter how small (Omar was able to teach a refugee family how to take the bus) – that success brought a joy that could only be felt after moments of unhappiness. I wish all you recent grads success in whatever happiness means for you, and peace on the not-always-happy journey.

Written by Anna Lenhart, Edited by Nicole Campbell