Why Selling Out Is Really Just Buying Into Someone Else's Values
Via Kenyon College
The Story
Defining success on your own terms matters more than chasing salary, job titles, or other people's approval, a lesson Bill Watterson delivered in his 1990 Kenyon College commencement speech ten years after his own graduation.
He recalled painting Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on his dorm ceiling as a sophomore purely for the joy of it, then contrasted that passion with the soul deadening jobs that followed, including a brief editorial cartoonist role at the Cincinnati Post that ended within months and years spent designing advertisements in a windowless basement.
Watterson argued that mental playfulness and curiosity keep the mind sharp, comparing the brain to a car battery that recharges through activity rather than the passive numbness of watching television.
He described refusing for years to let his syndicate merchandise Calvin and Hobbes into a slice of the twelve billion dollar licensing industry, insisting that selling out is really just a matter of buying into someone else's values.
Work done for its own sake, he said, feeds happiness in ways that money and recognition never can.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare and difficult achievement, but it is the one most worth pursuing.
He recalled painting Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on his dorm ceiling as a sophomore purely for the joy of it, then contrasted that passion with the soul deadening jobs that followed, including a brief editorial cartoonist role at the Cincinnati Post that ended within months and years spent designing advertisements in a windowless basement.
Watterson argued that mental playfulness and curiosity keep the mind sharp, comparing the brain to a car battery that recharges through activity rather than the passive numbness of watching television.
He described refusing for years to let his syndicate merchandise Calvin and Hobbes into a slice of the twelve billion dollar licensing industry, insisting that selling out is really just a matter of buying into someone else's values.
Work done for its own sake, he said, feeds happiness in ways that money and recognition never can.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare and difficult achievement, but it is the one most worth pursuing.
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