This week my first child began her college career. I’ve told her dozens of stories about my college experience but on this day I was thinking more about the college experience from the parent’s perspective. The day brought back a memory of my father and bringing my older brother to college over 35 years ago.
My dad was one of the least pretentious people I have ever met, but when we brought my brother to school, dad decided to hire a limo service (we didn’t own a car) to transport us from New York to Philadelphia. When we arrived on the campus quad we were greeted by curious students and parents wondering who the “rich people” (we were far from rich) in the car were. We were mortified by the attention and teased my father about the unfortunate trip to Phili for years. When my other brother and I prepared for college, we told dad that Amtrak, Greyhound, or even a covered wagon would be a better method of transport for the occasion.
So I was initially turned off by the fact that my daughter’s school has a tradition that the entire Freshman class marches through the school gates to signify the beginning of their college career. It brought me back to that limosine ride and the event seemed equally silly and over the top to me.
But something happened once the procession started and I finally understood the ride in the limo that day as I choked back a few tears and watched 2,000+ freshman stop traffic to walk through the gate. I always thought the limo was about my father being proud that his first son got into a great college and he wanted to indulge for just one day and go in style. But now I think the limo ride was more about celebrating the journey and all the steps it took to get this first son into college. So while I was watching the class of 2015 stream through the gates I thought about where they were going but more than that I thought about where they had been. I thought about how many countless days and nights their parents had spent helping their kids with homework, coaching sports teams, being cub scout den leaders, attending teacher-parent conferences, and everything in between.
When you are raising kids you sometimes get so wrapped up in the process that you forget to celebrate all the hard work that went into the process or acknowledge all the people who helped you along the way. And I started thinking about how true that is in a job search. People get so wrapped up in the end goal of finding a job that they forget to celebrate the successes along the way. And by the time they get the job they so desperately want to forget the time they spent searching and just move on. But I think there is tremendous value in reflecting on the process. So when you land your new job and enter the building on the first day or attend the new hire orientation, think about the future, but also take a minute to reflect on the past and appreciate all the hard work that went into the process.