All the graduations around here got me thinking of my time in college. I remember giving a presentation on taxation and, in the middle of it, getting into a heated argument with the finance professor about the abuse of a growing government and increasing taxes. His opinion was that the government should be responsible for an entire list of entitlement programs while my opinion was that those programs were not needed and people were being taxed too much. I distinctly remember him standing up and saying, “You’re one of those people that doesn't want to pay the money to get our roads built.” I got very upset, but all I could say was that he didn't understand. My classmates were happy to see the exchange and thanked me for speaking up, but I felt defeated.

That afternoon, an econ professor stopped me in the hall and told me he’d heard about what happened. He said, “Lily, don’t argue with stupid people. You’ll never win.” It has stuck with me all these years because I just wasn’t convinced. If I didn’t argue, who would? How, then, do you influence the world and persuade, perhaps even educate? There are those who will never understand for lack of IQ, but this professor had the intellectual capacity to understand what I was saying. My frustration was that he simply wasn’t listening, wasn’t open to entertaining an opposing view for even a few minutes.

However bewildered this professor made me, I was even more surprised months after graduating when an employer told me she didn’t want to learn about technology to make her business more efficient. Why would someone ever want to stop learning? I didn’t get my answer, but I did resign a few months later.

I don’t think it’s stupidity that frustrates me—it’s apathy. Apathy is the disease I’ve yet to find a cure for. It still stumps me. When I see it in people, I tend to sigh and keep quiet. I tell myself that this person is just someone I need to work around to get to my destination. Then I ask myself, is that “winning”? How do you win? What does that look like?

I still question what my econ professor said, and I’m not sure yet what advice I’d give my younger self concerning what happened.

I come here and learn from all of you every day, so I’m interested to know from Gulchers what experience or thought made you pause earlier in life, and what advice would you give your younger self?

I almost wish I could find out how to get a hold of that old finance professor. I’d like to tell him that since graduating, my husband and I have started two businesses and, judging from our tax statements, we’ve not only paid for the roads, but also for a thousand bureaucrats and their families to go on an awesome skiing vacation—and that’s too much.