…continued 

I’m not trying to dispel risk with a bottle of Charlie Sanford’s Magic Elixir. I can only arm you with a little food for thought. I do have a few suggestions. You may not wish to follow them. But if you’ll think about them, I’ll consider our time together most productively spent.

We all know that modern civilization owes much to the ancient Greeks. As the 20th century draws to a close, it’s difficult to single out a Greek thinker who speaks more directly to us than Heraclitus. “All is flux, nothing stays still,” said Heraclitus some twenty–five hundred years ago. “Nothing endures but change.”

Most of us have come to believe that “nothing endures but change,” but its consequences still deserve some reflection. Obviously, if change is the fundamental rule of life, then resistance to change is folly—doomed to defeat. Just as obviously, if change is our constant, then uncertainty is an inescapable part of our lives. Uncertainty is unavoidable. Life is unpredictable. The very essence of life is the unexpected and the unintended, the unanticipated turns which we may metaphorically ascribe to Fate or Destiny or Providence.

Therefore, unless we wish to be tossed about like so much flotsam on the waves of inescapable change, we must place ourselves squarely in the midst of change. We must learn to ride the current of change rather than to swim against it—although people who haven’t taken the trouble to learn how the world really works will think we’re doing exactly the opposite.

In other words, risk is commonly thought of as going against the current, taking the hard way against high odds. In a world of constant change, however, a world where Heracllitus said we can never step into the same river twice, taking risks is accepting the flow of change and aligning ourselves with it. Remember the first paradox: risk only looks like reckless endangerment. For those who understand reality, risk is actually the safest way to cope with a changing, uncertain world.

To take a risk is indeed to plunge into circumstances we cannot absolutely control. But the fact is that the only circumstances in this life that we can absolutely control are so relatively few and so utterly trivial as hardly to be worth the effort. Besides, the absence of absolute control—which is impossible in any case—does not entail the absence of any control, or even significant control.

There, again, is the paradox: in a world of constant change, risk is actually a form of safety, because it accepts that world for what it is. Conventional safety is where the danger really lies, because it denies and resists that world.

I trust you understand that when I say risk is actually safety, I’m talking about a certain sort of risk. I’m not advising that you leap off tall buildings in the hope that the operation of constant change will reverse the law of gravity in mid–flight. I’m speaking rather of a sort of risk which actually aligns you with the direction of change.

To be more specific, I believe firmly that the sort of risks which put one in a position to control ones lot in a world of incessant change are the risks which attempt to add something of value to that world. To create value, to focus ones efforts on increasing the fund of that which is worthwhile, involves (as we shall see) a sort of risk. And yet, paradoxically, it provides you with the greatest control over a changing world and maximizes your chances to achieve a truly meaningful personal satisfaction.

When I use words like “good” and “value” of course, I’m squarely in the arena of opinion. But what I’m talking about here is not really the margins of controversy, where reasonable people might be expected to disagree. By “good” I’m referring to those fairly broad ranges of behavior upon which we would all, I suspect, agree: whether it’s running a business which creates jobs, or working in a laboratory to discover a cure for cancer or AIDS, or trying to rationalize the distribution of the world’s food supply, or teaching young people, or any one of hundreds of other similar things.

I think we could agree not only on most things which are “good” and “valuable,” but that we could also agree on this: creating value is not the way that all, or even most, people choose to pursue their lives. The value which far too many people seek to create is the one from which they alone benefit. We could call these people selfish, I suppose, but I think there’s something larger at stake. People who are out only for themselves, who size up “the system” and then try to get the most they can out of it by whatever means, are making a fundamental error of observation. For they believe that “the system” is something destined to last forever, that the boss to whom they toady is irreplaceable. Such people believe they are riding the crest of something they call “public opinion,” which shifts so quickly and unpredictably, when in fact they are slaves to it—doomed to the shallowness of the conventional wisdom.

If pure self–seeking is so pervasive, it’s because those who seek only for themselves imagine that they are the whole world. If they are satisfied, then the world is by definition satisfied. But mere self–satisfaction is, in our paradoxical world, never satisfying. A famous financier understood this when he asked and answered his own rhetorical question: “When does a man have enough money? When he makes his next million.” Time and time again, we find that the people who are truly satisfied and enriched in this life, the ones who have achieved what is indisputably happiness, are the ones who have sought to create value for others. There is simply no arguing away the paradox of risk: if you fly in the face of conventional wisdom and take the risk of committing yourself to creating value for others, you are taking a large step toward insuring your own happiness and achieving a more meaningful safety.

It’s easy enough to deride this advice from a vantage point of false pragmatism. All I’m offering, runs this criticism, is a refurbished bleeding heart do–gooderism that urges people to go out and save the world. This address, some of you may say, is nothing more than a thinly disguised appeal to idealism, nobility, and self–sacrifice. And you would be right. In my personal view, our world could stand a little saving. And, as a native Georgian and a graduate of this university, I naturally believe deeply in idealism, nobility, and self–sacrifice.

But that does not exhaust my appeal. Here we encounter another paradox, the second one I want to bring to your attention. It runs like this: you serve yourself by serving others. Committing your life to creating value is in your own immediate and direct self–interest. There is nothing that you can do which will redound to your own personal benefit more than dedicating yourself to something larger than your own personal benefit.

Increasing the size of the pie—whether the pie is conceived of as wealth, or health, or knowledge increases the size of the individual slice. As the saying goes, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

But even more important, the creation of value leads directly to personal satisfaction. It leads to the awareness that you’ve done something worthwhile with your life. It fosters the sort of inner peace which unfortunately appears to be alarmingly scarce in our world.

I told you that I’m not handing out magic elixir. I’m not handing out hair shirts, either. I’m not advising a life of utter self–denial. I’m not suggesting that there is anything tainted about seeking material rewards. Instead, I’m suggesting that those pursuits are perfectly consistent with a commitment to creating value. Or, rather, I’m suggesting that pursuing material rewards is likely to be more successful when it is wedded to a commitment to creating value. The reason for that is simple: in the process, it is wedded to something greater than one’s own self.

In the end, you’ll find there is more happiness in creating value for others and enjoying the benefits, both material and psychological, that flow to you, than there is in only adding to your own net worth. It’s that simple. When we create value for others, we do not personally take in all the value we have created—and that, the people who have done so say again and again, is a source of incomparable satisfaction. Actually, the implications are encouraging, for they suggest (amidst all the headlines about greed and ego–centrism) that there is a nugget of altruism in our natures—buried deeply, perhaps, but still accessible.

continued…

From An Address by Charles S. Sanford, Jr. - June 17, 1989 - Delivered at the Commencement Exercises of the University of Georgia - Sanford Stadium, Athens, Georgia