People who know me know that pessimism and perfectionism are part of who I am. So I’m not great when it comes to doling out praise and celebrating (partial) successes – it is something I’ve worked on over the years, and gotten better at thanks to practice in my volunteer community, Forward STEPS. But I’ve got a ways to go.

One thing that I do enjoy, and that people say I’m pretty good at, is giving public speeches. So this fall I was asked by the Dean’s office in the College of Sciences and Humanities to give a brief celebratory speech at the reception for the students on the dean’s list and their loved ones. I took it as an opportunity to step out of my comfortable pessimist zone and recognize some of the great stuff being done by students at BSU.

In my speech yesterday, I shared about the work that philosophers do and the value it has for communities beyond the narrow confines of academia, in terms of skill development, self-discovery, self-expression, and relationship-building: a message that I think is essential in time of decreasing support for public education.

But I also encouraged the audience to see themselves as all being philosophers already, as all having accomplished that whether they realize it or not, because philosophical activities are part of everyday life, and do not belong only to the privileged. Insofar as we are all doing it already to some degree, we all deserve praise for grappling with tough questions and big ideas, and I’m happy to encourage all of us (myself included) to continually strive to be even better at it.