👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of Brainwaves. I'm Drew Jackson, and this article is a bit special for me.

I recently graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science degree in Quantitative Analysis of Markets & Organizations—that’s just a fancy way of saying business economics.

As such, I thought it would be good to give you some thoughts and writings I had 2 weeks before I graduated.

I don’t think I’m ready to graduate.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m very excited and looking forward to leaving this place. Whenever anyone asks if I’m excited to graduate, I say yes, but in my heart, I know I feel the opposite.

When I reached the second half of my senior year of high school, I was so excited to graduate. I was looking forward to what was to come—being an adult, going to college, living on my own, and so on.

Luckily, I was given the opportunity to speak at graduation—an action which set a precedent in my family where every child has to give a graduation speech whenever they graduate (whether or not they are actually speaking at graduation).

Looking back on the speech I gave, it was solidly mediocre, although I remember my parents being very proud of me at the time, claiming I had the “best” speech (high levels of bias there).

Here’s a quick excerpt from the actual message of the speech:

It did the job, providing a state of the union for what had happened over the previous 3 years while also giving a positive outlook and some advice for the future.

Given the precedent, even though I’m not planning on speaking at my college graduation, if I were, here’s what I would say:

My Journey of Becoming

I didn’t know that entering college would coincide with beginning a vast personal journey that would stretch into each corner of my life.

This journey took me to the ends of the Earth, literally and figuratively. It took time and distance for me to start reconsidering some of the fundamental assumptions I had about myself and about the life I was currently living and wanted to live.

During my summer in Pennsylvania, I got a peek at how large the world actually is. I found that no matter where you are, you’re able to learn from those around you. I began to explore subjects that truly interested me, the potential start of lifelong interests. I communicated at a high level with real adults for the first time, discussing deep issues in their lives that I was anything but an expert on. I felt totally at peace with my situation—these were humans going about living their daily lives, just like me—and simultaneously felt the chaotic awe of being dropped into a brand new environment surrounded by brand new people.

In Africa, I was reminded that most of the things I have in life distract me from truly living it. My entire life fit in a large bag—it put everything I owned into perspective quickly. I rarely lived inside my comfort zone—everything was brand new, “foreign.” And even though many of the times there was a large language barrier, I’ve never felt more connected to those around me—we understood each other deeply, even if we didn’t have the words to fully articulate the feeling. It was the first time I experienced a hint of inner peace, a synchronous tranquility of the mind, body, and soul.

Even back home, I had the pleasure of coming into contact with many people from diverse backgrounds. I quickly learned that there wasn’t just “one” way to live your life and be happy. Everyone is living their own lives in their own unique ways, making decisions according to the unique situations they are in—there isn’t a one-size-fits-all playbook for life, although many people would tell you otherwise.

Meeting people from across the world taught me valuable lessons about how little I actually knew about life.

Coming into college, I was a 3.98 GPA, 35 ACT, high school salutatorian student. If you had asked me then, I would have said that my life was good, that I knew most of what I wanted in life, that I had life “figured out.” In retrospect, I’m beginning to understand that everything I thought I knew at the time was simply surface-level.

At the time, I didn’t realize that I was just at the base of a very large mountain, not the top—there’s so much more to experience and explore. Many times throughout college, I’ve had to remember that I was only in my early twenties; I still have many decades ahead of me to explore every facet of this mountain.

Coming into my freshman year, I knew about 4 other people at the University of Utah. In the moment, I was scared to face a brand new, high-paced environment full of people I didn’t know. In hindsight, that reset allowed me to become my own person, unhindered by any previous versions of myself.

So far, the most unlikely of circumstances have resulted in some of the biggest outcomes throughout my journey: a random post on social media, asking if I would get a nametag in an interview, a habit started in the pandemic and maintained since, signing up for a class I heard good things about but had no idea what it was actually about, being bored one night in November and looking for things to fill my time, a relative’s coworker’s book recommendations, and probably many more things I can’t remember.

As I’ve continued to explore new facets of the mountain in front of me, I’ve seen many paths leading to interesting meadows and streams along the way. For instance, throughout my networking with colleagues, conversations with friends and family, and other interactions, I’ve asked everyone to recommend many of their favorite books from subjects like history, philosophy, religion, politics, business, and many others. Every new book I read opens up new doors to new perspectives and thoughts about the world around me and the people in it.

Furthermore, in our Radical Quiet class, we explored the practices of qigong and yoga nidra and my mind was expanded. I haven’t spent much time exploring active body mindfulness exercises, so I’m excited to dive deeper into myself and my inner being through these practices.

There are many other things I still have left to explore, from tidbits I glean from interesting conversations to meditation retreats to things I read on the internet and want to write about in my newsletter.

This journey of becoming has started. I’m about to graduate from college and move on and up into the new world, working full-time in a brand new city, surrounded by new people with new perspectives I get to explore. My life is full of more questions than answers; I’m getting too used to living in the gray area between certainty and uncertainty.

But what I do know for certain is that there’s an infinite number of incredible opportunities out there to pursue, from meeting new people to exploring new places to enjoying the quiet silences that hold the true secrets to life.

To those who have helped me get to where I am today, thank you. No words exist to truly express the gratitude I have for everything you have done. Instead, I leave you with a gift that speaks volumes more than I ever could: a shared silence together.

Thank you.

That’s all for today. I’ll be back in your inbox on Saturday with The Saturday Morning Newsletter.

Thanks for reading,

Drew Jackson

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