Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
On Choosing Well: Advice for Graduates and Reflections on Boyz II Men and My First Mixtape

On Choosing Well: Advice for Graduates and Reflections on Boyz II Men and My First Mixtape

Last updated on: May 22, 2023 at 9:09 am by Melissa Borja

0 Comments

On Choosing Well: Advice for Graduates and Reflections on Boyz II Men and My First Mixtape 2023-05-22T09:09:27-04:00 Melissa Borja

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In doctoral regalia and giving the Ph.D. convocation address when I graduated from Columbia University in 2013

May is my favorite month of the year, not only because it’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, but also because it’s a month we celebrate fresh beginnings, from new leaves brightening the branches of trees to new graduates celebrating their accomplishments and starting a new chapter in their lives.

This particular May marks a milestone for me: one decade since I was one of those graduates, a newly minted PhD who delighted in being able to call herself “Doctor” for the first time and who proudly paraded around Manhattan in a black velvet tam and a baby blue gown that had such splendid puffed sleeves that Anne of Green Gables would have surely been impressed.

A few weeks ago, I donned my doctoral regalia once again, this time to stand onstage and give the keynote address at the University of Michigan’s Asian & Pacific Islander Graduation Celebration. The students had chosen the graduation theme of “Up next—you get to decide,” and I had much to say about the “you get to decide” part because, honestly, I can think of few things more overwhelming. Deciding the direction of your life is incredibly daunting. More than anything, I spend my office hours talking with students about choices, not only about the topics for their research papers, but about their future careers and educational plans. Should I take this job after graduation? my students might ask me, and this question is usually a starting point for a longer discussion about more fundamental matters: What are my values? What is most important to me? And what do I want to do with my life? Around every past graduation in my life, from high school through graduate school, I remember asking the very same questions and finding my excitement about the future intertwined with just as much uncertainty about whether I was making the right choices or, instead, very grave mistakes.

Aware that there are probably many new graduates grappling with questions about life choices and inspired by Nadya Williams’ recent essay about “discerning vocation,” I’m sharing my graduation keynote address, which I’ve revised lightly for this blog post. My hope is that it can offer wisdom, encouragement, and reminders to be self-compassionate to those who are facing new beginnings and big choices this graduation season.

On Choosing Well

“Up next – you get to decide”: this is the theme of our celebration, and the musical playlist is the metaphor we are dwelling on today. It’s a very appropriate one, I think. Our entire lives are a lot like a playlist, a collection of songs we curate ourselves that reflects who we are and what we hope for, struggle against, dream of, and love. In many ways, a graduation is like the moment in the playlist of our lives when we shift from one song to another. There’s a lot of anticipation as we wonder: What will we dance to next?

And so I’m going to use this occasion to tell you about my first playlist, which I made when I was ten years old. I’m a historian by training, so I’m going to give you some history here. Unlike many of you graduating today, I was born in a long-ago era commonly known as “the late 1900s,” and in this far-off time, we didn’t have Spotify or streaming services, but mixtapes—physical, plastic cassette tapes. And to make my first mix tape, I loaded a blank cassette tape into my state-of-the-art tape player and recorded songs off the radio.

It was 1992. My favorite song was “End of Road” by Boyz II Men.

I loved that song so much that I recorded it ten times on one mixtape. This project took real dedication: an entire weekend of sitting by that tape player and waiting patiently for the song to come on the radio and then pouncing to press ‘record’ when it did.

The tape was an unusual mixtape because, well, there was no mix. It was literally a playlist with the same song, recorded ten times. My friends thought my mixtape was boring and obsessive. I thought my mix tape was glorious. It was exactly what I wanted. It was mine, something that reflected what I loved, a creation of my choice.

In the playlist that is our life, we need to make choices. It’s a responsibility we face all day, everyday. Not only do we need to make choices, but we need to make good ones. We’re constantly reminded—by our family and friends, by the news and social media, by our own conscience—that we must choose wisely because our individual and collective futures depend on it. In order to be healthy, we need to choose the right food to eat, the right type of exercise, the right amount of sleep. In order to be successful, we need to choose the right major, the right classes, the right internship. In order to be happy, we need to choose the right career, the right romantic partner, the right place to live.

The fact that we are faced with so many choices that shape the course of our lives is exhilarating and empowering. It’s also exhausting. Decision fatigue is a real thing! There’s a reason why Barack Obama had a closet full of suits that were all basically the same—the presidential wardrobe version of my Boyz II Men mixtape. As he explained, “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” And anyway, remember that time he tried wearing tan? It didn’t go so well. Sticking with navy: good choice.

Another reason why making choices is overwhelming is that it’s hard. To be sure, some choices are pretty easy. For example, suppose somebody is choosing between attending two colleges, the University of Michigan or Ohio State University. There’s clearly one right answer here.

But more often than not, we’re faced with decisions that don’t have an obvious right answer. Making choices is hard when there are a lot of unknowns, when there’s no clear best choice, when you have a lot of good options, when the consequences of your actions are overwhelmingly big, when you’ve never had to make such a big decision before.

Students in their final year of college often face all these challenges, and graduating seniors sometimes find their way to my office, seeking advice about what they should do next. Should they apply to graduate school? Move to Chicago? Travel abroad? Stay here and save up some money doing a familiar job closer to home?

Now, I’m a religion scholar, so I’m going to make a confession here: The truth is that, at forty years old, I’m often asking the same questions. Is this what I should be doing? Is this where I should be? These are the things I wonder.

But despite the fact that I’m continuing to figure things out, I do have some experience making choices, some of which have been good and wise, and others, less so. Throughout this process, I’ve learned a lot about the art of choosing.

So, while I acknowledge it’s a bit audacious because I’ve made my own fair share of mistakes, I’d like to share three rules for making good choices in life.

Rule number one: Approach every hard choice as an opportunity in itself.

Specifically, every hard choice is an opportunity to grow: to be in conversation with yourself and others and to learn about and reflect on your priorities, your values, and your needs, as well as those of the people you love. It’s a chance to know who you are and thus to create who you are.

In this regard, the chance to choose is a great gift. You don’t have to make a choice—you get to make a choice, and you get to be a wiser, more self-aware, and more intentional person because of the thinking and reflection involved with making that decision.

Sheena Iyengar, a social psychologist who researches choice, puts it this way in her book The Art of Choosing: “The chiseling, the carving out through our decisions, is what defines who we are. We are sculptors, finding ourselves in the evolution of choosing, not merely in the results of choice.” In Iyengar’s view, choosing is a “liberating act of creation.” She notes, “The writer Flannery O’Connor reportedly said, ‘I write to discover what I know.’ Perhaps we can take a page from her book and say, ‘I choose to discover who I am.’”

Rule number two: Always say YES.

This advice might be surprising, so let me explain. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever utter the word “no.” For example, I think that the advice from the late 1900s R&B group TLC is pretty sound: “no scrubs”—unless, of course, you’re a surgeon.

But what I am proposing is that when you say “no,” you reframe it as a moment when you are actually choosing to say “yes” to something that is deeply important to you. What I’m recommending is that you always strive to say what Lysa Terkeurst calls your “best yes,” which are the actions that reflect your most fundamental values and are in keeping with what you see as your personal mission.

Often a “best yes: and a lifetime defined by courageous, purposeful action emerges from a “no.” Here, I point to the lives of two fierce Asian American feminist activists whom I greatly admire, Grace Lee Boggs and Helen Zia.

For Grace Lee Boggs, the world said no, and that opened up the opportunity for her to say her best yes to something truer to herself. Born in 1915, Boggs graduated from Barnard College and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College. But there were few opportunities for academic careers available to women at the time. So she moved to Chicago and became involved in labor activism and Black civil rights organizing there, especially around fair hiring practices. She later recalled, “When I saw what a movement could do, I said, ‘Boy, that’s what I wanna do with my life.’” From there, she said her best yes to a decades-long career committed to a number of social causes: Black power, women’s rights, environmental justice, anti-war activism, Asian American organizing, and more.

Helen Zia, on the other hand, chose to say no, and that opened up the opportunity for her to say her best yes to an activist life that felt more authentic. Helen Zia studied at Princeton in the 1970s as a member of its first graduating class of women. As a student, she helped found the Asian American Students Association and was involved in anti-war and feminist movements on campus. But after graduating, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself, and so she pursued the default option: medical school. It was not the right fit for her. After two years, she said no to medical school, thus “spurning her path to respectability, wealth, and filial nirvana,” as she put it. Instead, she moved to Detroit, worked in an auto factory, became involved in labor organizing, and discovered journalism. When Vincent Chin was murdered in 1982 amid a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, Helen Zia was one of the leaders in the movement to call for justice for his killing. Today she is one of the nation’s most prominent Asian American leaders, and all this is possible in part because she said no to medical school and said her best yes to a career in activism that felt closer to her values and her mission.

My family in the early 1990s

Rule number three: Remember that your happiness depends not only on making the right choice, but on making that choice right.

After investing time and effort into making a good decision, you might think that your work is over and that your happiness is settled. But that’s not true! Making sure our decisions work out for the best requires continuous attention, effort, and care.

On this point, I think about the example of my parents, Frank and Eleanor, who, perhaps like many of you in the audience, are immigrants. They came to the United States from the Philippines in the early 1980s with big hopes and dreams for themselves and their children.

And where did they choose to pursue these hopes and dreams? Saginaw, Michigan. I love Saginaw. Some people call my hometown “Sagnasty.” I fondly call it “Saginawesome.”

I loved growing up in Saginaw, but let me be clear: Filipino family members thought my parents had made a strange choice. Everybody wondered why they had traded the tropics for the tundra. (The mangos are terrible in Saginaw!) And my Uncle Oscar, who lived in California, kept trying to convince my parents to move to L.A. so their daughter—me—could “become a star.”

Well, I never became a star because my parents felt good about Saginaw and stayed. They liked its down-to-earth atmosphere, friendly people, and affordable cost of living. To a young couple looking to establish themselves in America in 1982, Saginaw seemed like the best place for their young family to call home.

What they felt in 1982 turned out to be true: it was a great home, though not because there’s anything inherently special about Saginaw. It was a great home because over the past four decades, my parents made it a great home. They cultivated wonderful friendships and invested in the community. My dad served on the school board, and for years, my mom cheered for the high school football team, well past the time she actually had kids at the high school. In other words, Saginaw ended up being the right choice because my parents insistently and actively made it the right choice. And they were very happy as a result.

Well, friends, it’s your graduation, and to quote from the ever-insightful Boyz II Men: “we’ve come to the end of the road.” At this part of the journey, maybe, like Boyz II Men said, you can’t let go. Or maybe you’re really eager to move on. Or maybe you felt like I did on graduation day: excited but uncertain, because the world is big and beautiful, and you don’t want to waste a single second of the glorious gift that is your life. This is all okay.

My hope for you as you look to the future is this: that you take the time to embrace the opportunity to make wise choices that are the best for you. That you find a way to say your best yes. That you find a way to make the right choice, and to make that choice right. And that you find yourself in the process.

Asian Americans

Education

Melissa Borja

Previous Post

May 18, 2023

Plethon's Renaissance

Next Post

May 23, 2023 The Secret of Tim Keller’s Christian Apologetics

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Life Force is a guilty pleasure of mine! Not a great film, but a fun ..."

philipjenkins

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"I love horror but would have to acclimate back to Lovecraft and especially Machen. Have ..."

Terry

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"Very good point about MacDonald.I am certainly a Machen fan!"

philipjenkins

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"The Scottish author George MacDonald integrated fairy world into his fiction in a way that ..."

Terry

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What meal did the Israelites eat before leaving Egypt?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Day of Atonement meal Firstfruits Passover Feast of Booths