No Longer Green With Envy Over the Red Book

When "it" arrived five years after college, I read through it with youthful curiosity. When it showed up 10 years after college, I dreaded reading it, but read it anyway. When it came yet again 15 years after college, I didn't even break the seal—I left it in its plastic packaging and tossed it in a closet with some old, faded Jam shorts from the '80s.

"It" is the red-covered Harvard Class Report that is sent out to alumni every five years. It is a compilation of missives submitted by my former classmates, which describe their latest career and personal accomplishments. It is thick. It is intimidating. It can make you feel like an utter failure after reading just two pages.

When the latest edition of the Red Book arrived this past spring, something strange happened. I opened it up as soon as I got it, pored through the pages, smiled, even laughed. When I closed it, I was even happier. Because I realized, for the first time in the 20 years since graduation, I no longer lived in fear of The Red Book.

To understand why, let's back up a little. When I was growing up, my Mom always held up the careers of others to inspire my own. She was Old School. She admired lawyers, doctors, and professors. If you chose one of those professions, you were sure to be well-respected in society, live in a big house, and have lots of dough so you'd never have to worry. I understand why she felt this way. She was one of three children raised in the wake of the Great Depression and her family always worried about being able to pay their bills.

When she became a Mom, she scrimped, saved and did everything possible to position me for success in life. And her definition of success was becoming a lawyer, doctor or professor. The problem was, as much I tried to ignore it, my creative side was stronger and louder than my lawyerly side. And much to my parent's dismay, I went into the creative side of the advertising field. Mind you: I did so knowing full well that a Harvard education absolutely, positively prepares you IN NO WAY for this particular career path.

In the years that followed, I paid my dues. My Harvard degree may have helped get me job interviews, but it certainly didn't give me any fast track to the top. One rung at a time, I worked my way up from secretary to junior copywriter to senior copywriter to creative director. There were small, gratifying successes along the way, but no major event that, for my parents, would offset my failure to become their coveted doctor or lawyer. I was fairly happy in my life and what I was doing, but I couldn't jettison this feeling that I wasn't living up to my Harvard grad potential. And when that big fat Red Class Report arrived every five years, it only served to underscore my feelings of career underachievement.

When I paged through the thick booklet, it was so easy to feel intimidated. Heck, there was the gal who played hockey with my former college roommate who was now a major TV network producer. There was that seemingly dopey lacrosse player (whom I sort of dated) who became a well-respected physician. There was that guy who used to hold the 3-day keg parties who now headed up a division at one of New York's most prominent investment banking firms.

And there was me. Married. Advertising Professional. Ho. Hum. Holly.

Of course, I was happy for my former classmates and their successes. But I'll be honest: reading about them made me feel extremely defeated. Why couldn't I have made something of my Harvard degree to the level they did? Was I not motivated enough? Was I not smart enough? What I not something enough?

These were the gnawing questions that plagued me every time that #%& Class Report showed up on my doorstep. And these are the questions I finally stopped asking when in 2001, I finally became a Mom.

Once in the throes of Motherhood, there was no time for self-assessment. There was only time for doing. I was lucky to have a few minutes to suck down a triple espresso and wipe the gobs of spit-up out of my hair. My benchmark for success wasn't lowered, but it did change. Getting my son to not pee on my shirt when I changed his diaper? Major victory. Convincing my son not to throw his bottle on the floor of the car and burst into tears about it? Huge breakthrough. Several bleary-eyed months passed by and then one day it hit me: All that stuff I used to worry about? It didn't matter anymore. I was now the caretaker of two little lives. And there was no more wondering what I should be doing in life anymore. This was it. No other "job" I had before had tested me so fiercely or rewarded me so richly. After a lifetime of searching, I felt like I found the role I was always meant to play.

So, when Red Book time rolled around again (this time for my 20th class reunion), I did something different. When I got a form from Harvard asking me to submit a missive for the upcoming Class Book, I didn't scoff at it and say aloud, "What do I have to promote?" I actually sat down and wrote a missive about myself and my new role as a Mom. Sure, in some people's eyes it wasn't nearly impressive as the guy who became a Professor at a prominent law school; or the woman who is now the Editor of a major metropolitan newspaper; or the many other former classmates who have conquered, discovered, invented, prevailed, or pioneered. But in my mind, it conveyed a success story nonetheless.

And when that Red Book did arrive, I picked it up and read it enthusiastically. But perhaps the best part was reading missives that sounded a lot more genuine than they had in the past. Instead of bragging about their career achievements, more of my former classmates shared their personal, and refreshingly honest, stories of triumph and failure. There were battles with cancer. There were jobs and marriages that fell through. There were heart-breaking stories of people who went through unimaginable things. And then there was the missive of a guy, a father, who counted among his blessings: "Proud papa of bar mitzvah; incurable idealist; inventor of the Hug of a Thousand Kisses; thinking about resuming meditation."

As it turns out, as we Harvard alums grow older, we're becoming more real, more honest, more aware of what success can and should mean. And because we are, the Red Book has become a more interesting read than ever before. Who would have thought?