Former Gov. Mike Leavitt was doing well as the featured speaker at Friday's graduation ceremonies at Weber State University until he shot himself in the foot.
It was his last line that did it.
I went to Friday's commencement because of a problem that had haunted me all week.
On Monday, I attended a dinner with some of my wife's sociology students. One of them is graduating and has a year before she starts graduate school.
"So what are you going to do?" I said.
"I don't know. I'm terrified," she said.
Mike probably scared her even more.
Here we have a young, bright woman, her whole life ahead of her. That life has so constructed itself that she has a year to fill up with anything she wants.
What a gift! I know what I'd tell her to do.
"Get out and make what some people would call mistakes. Read books you aren't supposed to read. Go to movies you shouldn't see. Expose yourself to ideas you have been told will corrupt the nation.
"Travel by train or bus to friends in distant cities, sleep on their sofas and have them show you the bad parts of the towns they live in.
"Talk to people you meet on the train, in bus stations, even street corners. Pick an idea you hate and defend it. Force your friends to prove that you are wrong. It may surprise you how often they can't.
"Eat strange foods. Get your feet wet and your hands dirty. Sleep in the forest. Have dinner at the soup kitchen. Get lost in a big city. When you find yourself, get lost again.
"Take notes. Promise yourself your year will be a disaster if you do not touch your big toe in the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Extra points for the Sea of Cortez.
"Yes, of course: Be safe. But don't be so safe you never leave home, get out of the car, or walk around a city and get dizzy staring at tall buildings.
"On the contrary, seek failure. Write a newspaper column that makes people hate you. Draw pictures nobody likes. Trespass on a nude beach. Be the person everyone looks at and says, 'Weird!'
"After a year of this, you'll have an education more valuable than what you got at Weber State and one that will double the value of graduate school."
What did Mike Leavitt tell her?
He advised a multistep decision-making process: Write the problem down, minimize uncertainties, get advice, rethink options, list alternatives, weigh outcomes. His process is ponderous, time consuming and designed to avoid bad decisions.
If all that works for him, fine. I actually got hope when Mike ended his talk with the joke about the young employee who asks his boss how to be successful. "Make good decisions," the boss says.
How do you make good decisions? "You have to have experience."
And how, the lad asks, does one get experience?
"By making bad decisions."
Perfect!
Then Mike spoiled it. He closed by saying, "I hope all your decisions are good ones."
Oh, Mike. No, you don't.
Don't listen to Mike. Listen to his joke. Use your year to take chances, to heap up mistakes.
Some efforts may succeed despite yourself. You could even find a new career. Either way, you'll collect a well of experience that will give you a lifetime of better decisions while Mike is still back there making lists.
You'll have a lot more fun, too.
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can call him at 801-625-4232 or email him at ctrentelman@standard.net. He also blogs at www.standard.net.
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