I consider it a great honor to address the 2002 graduating class in psychology. We have a rather lengthy program this afternoon and my message will be brief. Before proceeding, I would like to make note of this special occasion. The themes of many graduate speeches stress that graduation is the beginning of a new phase of life. Hence, the term “commencement,” with which I would certainly agree, but I would also point out that graduation is also an end to a minimum of some sixteen year’s involvement in various levels of schooling. It is the culmination, also, of four or more years of involvement in academia. It is a unique, one time experience. From this point, all of you will go your separate ways to different callings, in different directions, and different levels of attainment in life. At this gathering this afternoon you have one thing in common. It is indeed a unique situation. Despite detours, health and financial difficulties, parking penalties, demanding examinations, unsympathetic (and sometimes boring) faculty, overdue term papers, bureaucratic barriers, and other unforeseen circumstances, by golly you have made it! Take a moment to pat yourselves on the back and exchange greetings and congratulations with those next to you.

My presentation deals with serendipity, best defined as the ability to find valuable agreeing things not sought for, and ambiguity, best characterized as uncertainty or the probability of being understood in two or more possible ways. I believe that both of these have great relevance to the times that we live in and for the future. A Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in psychology helps provide each of you with the advantage of a more sophisticated approach to the understanding of behavior, how to separate fact from fiction, reality from fantasy, how to better communicate and integrate data, all to better understand and appreciate the enormous complexities of human behavior and its many changes. At the present time we are going through a knowledge explosion and changes are taking place rapidly and extensively in all the industrial nations of the world at a pace never before experienced. There are many terms to characterize these changes, such as the Information Age, the Age of Increasing Convenience, the Age of Specialization, the specialization of specialization, the Age of Immediate Gratification, the Age of Biotechnology, the Age of the Brain, and the Age of Accelerated Obsolescence, to mention a few of the more prominent ones. There is no denying the reality of these changes, and, indeed, they have come about as a result of research and a generation of new knowledge. I do worry, however, that we may well be engulfed in a programmed world which will detract from the exploration and the experiences of the new and the different. Within the Information Age there is increasing emphasis on efficiency and the saving of time. What, for example, is the plan and how exactly are you going to accomplish it? What will the results be? Why does it take so long? Could it be speeded up? I am not sure why we have this great emphasis on haste. What is the hurry?

I once served on a committee dealing with research support. I noted with some frustration that those applications that specifically indicated what they were going to do, how it was going to be done, and what the results would be, received the highest ratings and financial support. They were also, in my judgement, the least imaginative and creative proposals, which application reviewers sometimes referred to as “boilerplate” or safe proposals. An applicant who received a detailed request for further information responded, “How can I answer you? How should I know? This is why I’m applying for the grant, to find out what would happen under certain conditions if such and such did take place. If I knew already, I wouldn’t be applying, I would be moving ahead. The committee needs to do more to encourage imagination and curiosity.” I might add that she never did get her grant approved. I use this example to emphasize that if there is one thing we’ve learned, it is that some of the most rewarding experiences in life are not expected, and that there is a great value in breaking out of the envelope and not being hesitant to explore new directions, not only to tolerate the lack of clarity, but to patiently exert efforts to establish clarity and to accept the fact that once clarity is established, things may very well become ambiguous again. This is the path to learning and discovery, and to growth and maturity. As graduates you have to find your own direction and recognize that the world is not quite as predictable as some of the savants would have us believe. Witness, for example, the recent disaster and downturn in the financial markets and the economy in general in the face of opposite predictions of experts, based on data accumulated through complicated formulas, worked out on ultra high-speed computers with programs designed to evaluate data about the economy and the stock market. The results we are all too well aware of. It embarrassed many of the so-called experts and, much more importantly, has left many many persons with reduced financial resources.

Many predictions about human behavior or where and how human beings will eventually wind up do not work out. There are too many variables, known and unknown, in order to predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And once the first step in the prediction is taken, the entire configuration changes. I pause now for a moment and address the family and friends, and ask how many of you at one time thought you would occupy the positions that you now do? How many thought you were headed in one direction or career and wound up on another path? Just clap your hands lightly. The rewarding consequences for broadening one’s psychological space and developing the ability to deal with uncertainty—I emphasize the ability to deal with uncertainty as a protection against being panicked by uncertainty, but to use uncertainty as a spur to establish understanding as a background for competent coping with life’s many challenges.

There is a story about Mother Theresa, the saint of the slums of Calcutta, who was once asked about how she managed to be so well organized in the virtually impossible task that confronted her. She said, “You do not understand. I wake up every day in a world of ambiguity. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I try to make meaning of what I see and what other things to expect.” The ability to make meaningfulness out of ambiguous situations is a valuable strength and a talent worth cultivating, and one in which your training in psychology will, I hope, be of assistance. It is not for those seeking immediate security and structure, but for those willing to experience the satisfaction of finding something out for themselves. There will always be welcome places for creativity and new and constructive approaches to old problems.

Once on a trip to a more remote part of south China, my wife and I left our group in the evening and walked along the unpaved streets. We were as much a novelty to the population as they were to us. By sign language we somehow communicated and were invited into a home where many people lived and emerged every morning cleanly dressed and headed for work or school. How they did this without running water or other facilities would seem impossible to us Westerners, but this was a reality, it did happen, and made us better appreciate how people use their ingenuity. One does not have to travel abroad to experience serendipity. Interacting with different groups and cultures brings about a widening life space and an increased understanding and tolerance for the beliefs and activities of other groups. You graduates have no further to look than your own experiences at the University of Texas, where most of you entered as freshman and leave with new friends and a variety of experiences, many of which you never thought would take place.

To graduates I say, you are young, you have worked hard, you have a challenging life ahead of you. I close with an observation made by a wise philosopher: “Life is a vessel with many things to be poured into and many things to be poured out of it.” At this time of the knowledge explosion, the pouring in consists of thousands of bits of information and experiences; the pouring out is your ability to see a wider world with things in different contexts, not to jump to conclusions or to polarize, yet to be steadfast and to distill from the thousand bits of information the ability to convert them into wisdom and good judgement, two of the most precious attainments indeed. And also, without doubt, the best hoped for results of a liberal arts education, and especially, of course, of a psychology major. You have graduated from one of the best psychology departments in the United States. From the faculty and the university, we wish you all good fortune in your lives ahead. Thank you very much.

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