You're Pathetic

This month’s College of Veterinary Medicine Graduate Student Association Meeting had a very interesting guest speaker. Dr. Henry Musoma of the Mays Business School spoke to us about the Journey from Pathetic to Prophetic and, basically, how to be a good person, particularly in academic research. His speech took up almost the entire meeting time and was incredibly entertaining and meaningful.

Without rehashing his entire speech, he made some good points that I wanted to share:

• He started his speech by saying, “If you want to overwhelm a fly take a poop in 3 spots.” (but it was in a native Zambian language, where he is from).
•  “If the story is too pretty, somebody is lying. Like Thanksgiving.”
• “Everyone’s a little bit racist.” Okay that one is actually from Avenue Q but he did say everyone is prejudice and to be honest to yourself about your prejudices. To him, it’s the people who say they don’t see color are the scary ones.
• “In identifying each other’s struggles we will find each other’s humanity and in finding each other’s humanity we will find each other’s humor and in finding each other’s humor we will find each other’s humility.”

He ended his speech by saying, “Don’t be impressed by me, be inspired by me.” I think the humility in this statement speaks wonders.