Fun and Courage

Dartmouth College/June 14, 1953

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Now, with your permission, I want to talk about two points—two qualities—today that are purely personal.

1 am going to talk about fun—joy—happiness, just fun in life. 1 am going to talk a little about courage.

Now, as to fun: to get myself straight at once, for fear that in my garrudous way I might stray from my point, I shall say this: unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss. It is un-Christian and wicked, in my opinion, to allow such a thing to occur.

Now, there are many, many different things and thoughts and ideas that will contribute—any acts of your own—that will contribute to the fun you have out of life. You can go along the bank of a stream in the tropics, and there is a crocodile lying in the sun. He looks the picture of contentment. They tell me that often they live to be great age—a hundred years or more—and still lying in the sun and that is all they do.

Now, by going to Dartmouth, by coming this far along the road, you have achieved certain standard, one of those standards is: it is no longer so easy for you to have fun and you can’t be like a crocodile and sleep away your life and be satisfied. You must do something, and normally it must involve others, something you do for them. The satisfaction——it’s trite but it’s true—the satisfaction of a clear conscience, no matter what happens...

Whatever you do—a little help to someone along the road—something you have achieved because you worked hard for it, like your graduation diploma today, those things have become worthwhile, and in your own estimation will contribute to your happiness. They will measure up to your standards because your standards have become those that only you know, but they have become very high. And if you do those things, they are the kind of things that will satisfy you and make life something that is joyous, that will cause your face to spread out a little, instead of going this way (indicating a long face). There’s too much of that in the world, anyway.

You are leaders. You are bound to be leaders because you have had advantages that make you leader to someone, whether you know it or not. There will be tough problems to solve. You have heard about them. You can’t solve them with long faces—they don’t solve problems, not when they deal with humans. Humans have to have confidence. You have got to help give it to them.