David Foster Wallace's "Kenyon Commencement Speech"

            People today can be very self-centered and set in their ways.  In David Foster Wallace’s “Kenyon Commencement Speech,” he challenges his audience to change their way of thinking.  He forces people to think about how the other person’s day is going, rather than just think about themselves.  Wallace hints at the age old saying that talks about walking a day in the other person’s shoes before getting to know them.  It was very interesting to hear this idea about slowing down and thinking about others before themselves.  Most people today do not stop and take the time to do this, myself included, because we claim that we, “don’t have time.”  He says that if you learn how to think, then everyday life can become easier.  It would help people slow down and not stress out so much about the little things in life.  I had never thought about things that way and it really opened my eyes to what learning to think really meant. 

I have always been told that the Jesuits teach people to think, rather than just teaching them facts and never fully understood what that meant.  Going to a Jesuit High School for four years before choosing to come here for college, I was told, “We are not just teaching you knowledge, but how to think, to better prepare you for college.”  This never really made any sense to me.  We had strict rules for everything we did academically and everything in general, not giving much opportunity to think for ourselves.  After listening to this speech it has helped me realize how to actually “think.”  Every day we are faced with challenges that need to be dealt with in different ways, and some are more difficult than others.  I was not able to realize that in High School the teachers were teaching us how too think by changing up the very strict guidelines to give us different ways to do things.

            On one random day during our senior year, we took a day off to watch a movie about suicide.  It was not just a documentary, but more of a life story where this guy becomes very popular and neglects his best friend and his best friend becomes depressed and commits suicide in front of the whole school.  He was torn apart, because he could have done something about it earlier on if he just took the time out of his day to spend time with his best friend that he neglected all throughout high school.  Later on in the movie he ends up saving another kid from committing suicide just by talking to him and making him feel important.  He is able to forget about society’s perception of him being popular and do what David Foster Wallace is challenging us to do. 

            Thinking outside of a comfort zone is not easy for anyone.  It takes guts and extreme self-control.  David Foster Wallace is challenging the graduates to go out in the world and think in a different way than most people.  He challenges them to think about the kind of day that the other person is having rather than just thinking about how bad their day is.  This speech was really interesting and it opened my eyes on how to think, and start thinking of others first before myself.