By Richard Halloran

This article is adapted from a recent commencement address at Hawai'i Pacific University by Richard Halloran, who was made a Fellow of the Pacific, HPU's highest award. Halloran was a New York Times reporter in Asia.

During graduation season in America and other nations, speakers urged graduates to go forth and do great things — write an incisive novel, find the cure for cancer or AIDS, be a diplomat who brings peace, serve as a soldier who protects people, work in a corporation that produces a needed product or service and provides jobs.

These are noble ambitions. Even so, I would like to take a somewhat different tack and ask you to think small. I would like to pass on some of the little things that several magnificent teachers have taught me.

The first was my sainted mother, Catherine, who said: "It is the little things in life that count." She meant the kind word, the helping hand to someone who is troubled, the cheerful hello to the bus driver or store clerk, the unexpected telephone call that says nothing more than "How are you" and "I care."

Another teacher was a Roman Catholic priest who delivered a profound philosophy in a simple sermon. "Do not concern yourselves with the extraordinary things of life," he said, "but do the ordinary things of life extraordinarily well." I have sought to advise journalists just starting out to take a seemingly trivial assignment and report it as if it were competing for the Pulitzer Prize.

Still another teacher, Col. Wilbur W. Wilson, who commanded the 325th Airborne Infantry, the first regiment in which I served. "Attention to detail, Lieutenant," he said. "Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves." To this day I can hear his gruff voice in my mind's ear.

My son Chris, an avid student of motion pictures, taught me a line from the movie "The Year of Living Dangerously." Two characters are lamenting how hard it is to do anything about poverty in the world. Finally one says: "You just don't think about the major issues. You do whatever you can about the misery that's in front of you." Each of us, with some thought, can chip away at the misery in front of us.

Please let me try to apply these thoughts to three aspects of life: civility, integrity, humility.

We in Hawai'i take pride in our so-called aloha spirit. Yet in the year I was editorial director of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, I learned that it can sometimes be no more than a quarter-inch deep.

Almost every day I received calls or e-mails or letters disagreeing with something I had written or chosen to publish. That was fine, since we had set out to be stimulating, sometimes provocative and occasionally infuriating.

Often, however, I was accused of being the offspring of unmarried parents or a traitor to our country, a fascist, a communist or a liar. Once in a while I would be attacked on the same issue from the left and right.

The point here is that civilized people should be able to disagree without being disagreeable. The argument ad hominem, the personal attack, should be stricken from public discourse.

A lesson on integrity came from an Army sergeant when I was in basic training. He was tough as nails and merciless in whipping us into shape. One day he told us we would have a new sergeant the next week because he was leaving the Army. His two years as a draftee were up.

We gasped, because we had assumed he was regular Army. Why, as a draftee, had he seemed like a lifelong soldier? He fixed a steely look on us and said: "I do my job."

I do not know what became of that sergeant, but I am certain that he was a success, because of the personal integrity summed up in that crisp sentence: "I do my job."

One day when I was reporting on the demilitarized zone that divides Korea, a general came by to inspect, and we had a chat. He said: "I want to thank you." It is rare that newspaper correspondents ever get thanked for anything, so I said: "That's very nice, General, but what for?"

"For telling the truth about human rights in Korea, for writing about some of the problems we have here, things like that," he said. I said: "Thank you, General, but I'm not sure I know the truth. Maybe the best I can do is to tell the readers what I found out today and then try to explain it."

As I have thought more about it, that word "truth" has become more scary. Telling the truth means finding out everything there is to know about something, then analyzing it in a totally balanced manner. That sets an impossible standard.

We are not absolved from seeking the truth. But I would suggest that you be wary of the word, that you forever keep your minds open to learning something new about everything you think you know, that you apply a touch of humility to the judgments you render or the opinions you hold.

A final thought that some say came from China, others from Europe: "It is better to light one candle than to curse the dark." Maybe none of us can remake the world, but each of us can bring a touch of light to our own corner of it.

Reach Richard Halloran at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.