Professor Omid Safi has some advice for Duke’s graduating seniors, or really any student who may be struggling to answer questions about what’s next.
“It has been helpful for me to remember, as somebody who studies multiple religious traditions, that good old socialist, first-century Palestinian Jew – Jesus – doesn’t figure out that he’s the Christ until he’s 30. And that Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, doesn’t become the Buddha until he’s 35. And that Arabian mystic and merchant Muhammad doesn’t figure out that he’s meant to be the Prophet until he’s 40.”
“Our students are amazing, but you’re not any cooler than Jesus, you’re not any more enlightened than the Buddha, you’re not any more luminous than Muhammad. So why should we expect that you have all of your life figured out by the time you’re 21 or 22?”
Safi, a professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, led a small group discussion this April about what it means to be human and how to live a more humane existence. He asked attendees to consider why so many of us – including our students – are “so stressed out and anxious in a way that is quite disconcerting.”
It was the final installment of Exploring Self and Community in Dark Times, a discussion series that encouraged primarily first- and second-year Duke students to examine the world through a humanities lens. Much of the discussion about COVID-19 focused on health care and policy, but the global crisis also highlights the relevance of rigorous, critical humanistic thinking, according to the faculty working group that created the series.
During his talk, Safi walked students through varying definitions and metrics for success, leadership and excellence, noting that, in telling their life stories, people rarely share the many difficulties and failures that happened along the way.
Safi also noted the pervasive culture of achievement and relentless resume-building that shapes students not only at Duke, but across our educational systems more broadly.
“My worry is that in this pre-professional culture that we are all participating in…that we are training a generation of people who in many ways are not just pre-med and pre-law and pre-consulting, they’re pre-life,” Safi said. “We’re always putting off when real life is supposed to start.”
To counter that, Safi says he often asks students not what they are majoring in but what they are passionate about. “Have your heart be where your feet are,” he advised. And he stressed the importance of a support system.
“When life gets really turbulent…if you are fortunate enough to have a lifeboat, who is in that boat with you? All I have to do is extend my hand and they will grab it, because they are there with me. And in whose boat am I?”
Be sure to thank those people, Safi said, and let them know what they mean to you. Because when considering how you would spend your last hours on Earth, if you had the choice, those are the people that you would seek out.
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies