GRADUATE SCHOOL
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LIFE AFTER GRADUATE SCHOOL Much of my life returned to normal after graduation. I reinvigorated my business and started making money again. I lost some old clients and commissions, but I thought they were a small price to pay for the experience. The experience was worth the loss of a little money. Because I had moved my practice home, I particularly enjoyed the short commute to the office (a hallway) and its informality (I work in my shorts). I quickly reconnected with my wife, family and friends and enjoyed a reinvigorated, robust social life. Curiously, graduate school had acclimated me to reading and learning, so I found myself reading, studying and writing more. One great pleasure acquired from graduate school is reading in the morning for an hour just after getting up—my mind is fresh and open to learning. I redacted my thesis into a book titled Stoicism, Enkrasia, and Happiness and finished an earlier book, Aegean Summer—both of which are now published. It was good to be home. SOME FINAL THOUGHTS On my deathbed, I know I will think going back to school at the graduate level at age fifty-eight was one of the best decisions and experiences of my life. I made the effort to take time off from the demands of living to do something in life I always wanted—study philosophy. I fulfilled a dream, I had adventure and I met and made a lot of new friends—people I would never normally have known along the way. I lived my life to its fullest
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About the Book
Graduate School is a memoir about an older person returning to school. It is about new beginnings, changing a way of living and adventurously pursuing a life passion by studying philosophy. It is about the struggle to get into graduate school, the challenges of learning again, the excitement of a fresh start in life and the happiness derived from studying the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. This is also a book about higher education in America today written through the lens of one who had experienced much of life—who has navigated the rough and tumble real world and entered an academic surreal world. This memoir evaluates controversial topics like feminism, socialism and liberal academic biases based on experience. In many ways, academia is an idealistic, make-believe cocoon. This book is also about those that inhabitant this world. It describes professors with liberal agendas, professors struggling to inculcate learning and idealistic professors endeavoring to impart knowledge. It is also about the college students and those who live at the periphery of academia. Foremost, this book is about ideas. It describes a student’s descent into the philosophies of free will, determinism, art and morality, theories of the mind, Stoicism and ancient history. A few redacted papers are included to illustrate the author’s ignorance, issues in graduate school and difficult ideas and concepts to master. One paper, for example, compares the decline of Ancient Rome with the decline of America today. While this book offers insights into many facets of graduate school, the central topic is how to achieve happiness in life. Some of its most important messages are that it is never too late to learn, that we compete against ourselves and not others and to always live life to its fullest, aim further than your reach and live life now because it is all we have.