Summer provides a time to relax and catch up on reading. It’s a great time to reflect on where you are in your career and think about the next steps. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Working – Studs Terkel – The classic on the topic with people sharing stories of ‘what they do all day and how they feel about what they do’.

What Should I Do With My Life? – Po Bronson – Interviews with people trying to answer ‘the question’.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work – Alain de Botton – Philosophical exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace.

Then We Came to the End – Jonathan Ferris – Welcome to the world of a Chicago ad agency in this novel of workers coping with a business downturn.

Company – Max Barry – If satire is your preference, enter the world of Zephyr Holdings in this 2006 novel.

If you don’t have much time, check out the  Adam Bryant‘s ‘Corner Office’ column each Sunday in The Times Business section. Each week an interview with a CEO about their story, how they lead and how they hire.

Getting away, even for a few hours to read and reflect will open a new window on your current work and options for your future.

For many folks graduating this month, formal education will end with the awarding of a diploma. In today’s changing workplace, it’s no longer acceptable to stop learning when you take off your cap and gown. Opportunities for learning are all around you: in your workplace, your community and local universities.

Let’s start with the workplace. As a new graduate you will be starting a new job. There will be many opportunities to learn on the job in the first few months of employment. But then what? When you find you are no longer learning, it’s time to do a quick skill assessment and identify the gaps in your education. Don’t just think about what you need to master your current job, look to the folks in the next level of your field. What skills do they have? Begin building your portfolio to prepare for advancement.

The ‘Brooklyn Brainery’, a storefront in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, described in an article in the NY Times, offers “accessible, community-driven, crowd-sourced education.”

“We are just curious about learning things,” said Jonathan Soma, a founder of the Brooklyn Brainery, who works as a freelance web programmer to supplement his income. “We figure, there must be other people like us out there.”

The article continues to describe the audience as “suspended in a state of continuous education, an endless senior year driven by the belief that everyone has something to teach.”

I think that’s a wonderful description for the lifelong learner. The classroom is everywhere. Some days you will be the student, on others the teacher. Education is changing. YouTube and Wikipedia are the ‘go to’ sites for ‘on demand’ knowledge. Continuing education programs in universities are now being offered on line providing worldwide access to expertise. We all have something new to learn. We all have knowledge to share.

Stay curious and never stop learning.

Congratulations to all of you and your families who have supported you over the past four years. Enjoy your day of celebration.

One last excerpt…one more piece of advice:

“You just need to get a life, a real life, a full life, yes, but another life, too. School never ends. The classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spend more time at the office.”   Anna Quindlen, 2001

Here is the final set of quotes from memorable commencement speeches. This is one that was cited often this year on the death of its’ author, Steve Jobs. In 2005 the Apple founder delivered the commencement address to the graduates of Stanford University.

His remarks reflect a clear awareness of his mortality with lessons for all. Here are the closing paragraphs from that speech.

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything  all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

In 1999, Anna Quindlen the former New York Times columnist, author and Newsweek contributor was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Villanova University. But she withdrew after opponents threatened to disrupt the ceremony. A disappointed student asked for a copy of the address. It was posted on the Internet and later expanded into a book called ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’.

Here is a short excerpt from the transcript:

“You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your minds, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely…

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen, I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

This afternoon take a few minutes to look at your finely crafted resume. And then fill in between the lines. What is truly important to you? Who do you want to become?

It’s that time of year when college campuses are filled with family and friends as they join seniors to celebrate commencement. It’s a bittersweet time when expectation of the new mingles with the loss in separation from what’s familiar.

It’s a time when advice is shared from podiums around the world; from celebrities, scholars, politicians and corporate leaders. Some of the advice given to graduates applies to all of us. This week I will share some of the best. Keeping it short to allow time to reflect.

“I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.” Jeff Bezos, Princeton (2010)

“Learning how to think’ really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.” David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College (2005)