2nd hand Career Advice

"Young People:
You have come here for an education.
An educated person is a person who by the age of 21 has developed a theory of what constitutes a satisfying life and significant life.
This theory should be consonant and consistent with the history of humankind and the great thinkers that have gone before.
And an educated person is one who by the age of 25 has developed a plan or course of action to implement their theory, to move towards a satisfying and significant life.
Now
if that person has attained those ages and
has not developed a theory or planned and moved towards implementing it,
then that person
is a fool,
an ignoramus and
probably dangerous."

Wow - what a prescription. What a concluding condemnation.

I delight in it.
And now some context.
The words are mostly not mine.
But I tried as best I could to be faithful to what I understand the original to be.
The original was composed about 1902.
By the then President of the University of Chicago - if my memory holds.
To the entering class that year, seated about an auditorium.

I first read the words in Montreal in 1976.
I was a Project Analyst in the Strategic Projects Group, Headquarters of Canadian National - a diversified conglomerate - trains hotels marine telecommunications.
Half my job was to scan/read periodicals by the bucketful.
One publication I often read was Vital Speeches of the Day.
And one issue was the speech of some military type guy - (Brig. Gen'l?) that had as a theme education.
And the story was told of this turn of the 20th century (1902) University president giving this incredible 60 second address to a throng of frosh.
That was his entire appearance - enter, give a minute long speech, and exit.

And for 35 years now
I have kept that speech in my mind
cuz I thought it so profound and helpful.

You may be curious whether in all those years
I developed a theory
and a plan
for a S&S life.

Not completely, so perhaps I'm a fool.
But hardly dangerous.

But I have given it plenty of thought,
and narrowed the many choices to a few
and rejected plenty of others.

And it is with that in mind that
I presume to scribble (or keyboard equivalent)
some of the notions I've taken a fancy to,
which may loosely qualify as components of My Theory.

To serve is to be content.
True service is an example of love. Love (admittedly a confusing word) is good.

Keep a special respect for Nature and her ways. You are part of Nature.
Biology, the study of living things from microbes to humans, informs us that living things follow certain patterns as a routine. Best to be mindful of these biological imperatives for self and other living things.

Our mission is to move towards accelerating evolution.
Natural systems, starting with the cosmos, evolve.
You are a part of natural systems.
Consider the direction of evolution for the cosmos, and for our species.
Consider making choices consistent with those evolutionary directions.

Community is important and deserves to be supported and nurtured.
Consider playing a meaningful role in your communities.
Humans are social creatures. We are not designed/evolved to go it alone.
We grow best in communities.