Finding a reason to wake up each morning
I come from a lineage of farmers, utopia dreamers, artists, activists, lawyers, teachers, and small business owners—all of whom inspire my work, and my unwavering belief that we can align our path to be one of purpose, creativity, and community. Nothing embodies this more aptly than the Japanese word Ikigai, which translates to: “A reason for being,” or as I’ve also heard: “A reason to wake up in the morning.”
Sheep from my family’s farm in Tunbridge, Vermont.
My grandfather—Bob O’Brien—died a week before I was born. He was a working class son of Irish immigrants who lived outside of Boston, his father a dentist and devout Catholic. Many considered my grandfather a strict, moral, idealistic man—the kind of person who would wake up before sunrise every morning to make gruel for his four children, then tell them their goal in life should be to serve the public. He found his way to Dartmouth College in the 1930s, where he studied Philosophy and became particularly enamored with the renowned American thinker William James (who he later named my own father after). As the family legend goes, Bob walked out of his Dartmouth graduation, found the nearest road, and hitched a ride from a stranger who dropped him off in a small, pastoral town in Vermont called Tunbridge. Not long after, he bought cheap land and started a sheep farm that my family still runs today.
Bob became—amongst many things—one of the thought leaders behind the Peace Corps. He joined a group of Dartmouth and Harvard students in 1940 to start Camp William James, whose mission was to bring people to live and work together under a common cause. It soon became supported by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a champion for the New Deal “Corps” programs of the time. Within a year, World War II brought the Camp to a close—but its legacy struck a chord in President Kennedy, who reimagined the model within a global framework: The Peace Corps.
The founders of Camp William James gathering for a reunion in 1977 at our family’s farm. All were Harvard and Dartmouth graduates.
My grandfather spent the rest of his career as a bombardier, sheep farmer, father, legislator, education reformist, board member of one of the first food co-ops in the country, and 1976 candidate for Vermont Governor (alongside a very young, endearing candidate named Bernie Sanders), before eventually dying in Kampala, Uganda while speaking about volunteer service at a United Nations conference. In a 1980 speech, he said all young people should give “Two years of voluntary service, two years in the work of giving tender, loving care to this old planet.”
I share this history for several reasons. When I work with students on their college essays, I always encourage them to reflect on their family’s ancestry—it is inherently unique to them, “uncommon” in the sense that no one else shares that same story. To understand where we want to go, we often need to understand where we come from. One of my students this past year started his Personal Statement, one I’m particularly fond of, with a nod to his own lineage. He wrote:
“The doors are always open at my house–and there is always room at the table. This tradition goes back to my great-grandparents, who as Holocaust refugees created a home for themselves in America by founding a synagogue. I grew up seeing the neon “Walk-Ins Welcome” sign outside my grandparents’ house, who carried on this tradition by extending their table with two-by-fours, saw horses, and plywood.”
Similar to my student, I turn to my grandfather’s story with a certain amount of yearning to open the door a bit wider. In fact, I founded Uncommon Futures to reenvision the door itself. I want young people to pursue an education not because of prestige—but because of passion. I want them to realize learning can happen in the classroom—but also outside of its walls.
The 1976 Vermont Governors race, featuring a young, endearing candidate named Bernie Sanders (left) debating Robert (Bob) O’Brien, my grandfather (right).
There are so many ways to shape your future. What if you chose the path that is meaningful and authentic to who you are, a path that brings more “tender, loving care to this old planet”? The past few months have corroded our country’s democracy and filled the air with a smoke of despair. As many of us have, I’ve been grappling with the present moment and what it could mean for our collective future. It feels tenuous and terrifying. Yet I hold onto this hope of an anecdote—a world where we all find a kinder, more compassionate reason to wake up in the morning. I wake up each day in pursuit of that world.
