9696 – Global | English Speeches, Books, coupons and online services ratings.
First off, I want to thank the teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School for first considering and then inviting me to speak here. It was flattering, I am touched and humbled, and you have made a grave mistake. I’m being paid for this, right? Oh, wait, there’s some advice, right off the bat – always get paid.
What’s been at the edge of your awareness that you’ll place in that letter so it’s nearer to your core. How you might bridge your own dreams and those of a family in the periphery with its own heartbreakingly simple goal: “Stay nourished. Stay safe.”
Don’t get hung up on what other people say is practical. Instead, steer your ship into the choppy seas. Look for the rough spots, the problems that seem too big, the complexities that other people are content to work around. It’s in those places that you will find your purpose. It’s there that you can make your greatest contribution.
Technology is wonderful and powerful and efficient, but there’s no app for inspiration. Don’t let a four-inch screen narrow your vision. Open your eyes so wide that you let the entire world come in.
You enter a world of difficulty with open eyes, tasked with writing a story that is not necessarily of your choosing but is still entirely yours. You’re the pride of your parents and grandparents, of aunts, uncles and teachers, of the communities that shaped you in ways seen and unseen. You weren’t promised this day.
The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment, just when they threaten to overwhelm us.
My wish for you graduates is that you get comfortable with failure, with rejection, accept that it’s a possibility, but never let it define you. And never let it hold you back.
Graduates, being a builder is about believing that you cannot possibly be the greatest cause on this Earth, because you aren’t built to last. It’s about making peace with the fact that you won’t be there for the end of the story.
It is in the truly trying moments that the fearless inspire us. Duke graduates, be fearless! Be the last people to accept things as they are. And the first people to stand up and change them for the better.
I encourage you to remember that when you discover your passion, and make the first steps of your career, everything you’ve learned, everything you’ve experienced, makes you a different kind of contributor.
You don’t need all of the answers on your graduation day. What you need today is to have confidence and trust in what you decide is your moonshot. Confidence that you will do what is hard and trust that you can achieve what is great. Confidence and trust that you will be a part of something larger than any one person.
You begin to know yourself – your capabilities, your gaps, what motivates you – well enough to commit to efforts that can take a long time to realize. Years. Decades, if necessary. You even become willing to work for goals that will not be achieved in your lifetime.
So I invite you to go forth from here with your Stanford degree in hand with the conviction to carry on their legacy, to improve on it, to create your own legacy of greatness, to live your convictions not just at the keyboard but on the streets, in the arena and in the polling place, to arrive each morning determined to hate hate, to become colorblind, to take a chance, to love your mother, Mother Earth.
And graduates, if you go out there and make that claim, if you reach back to help others do the same, then I am confident that you will lead lives worthy of your dreams, and you will fulfill that precious Spelman legacy that is now yours.
When you leave the friendly confines of West Philly: Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you’ve got. And when you fall throughout life—and maybe even tonight after a few too many glasses of champagne—fall forward.
Think of perfection like an asymptote. The journey towards it is infinite, but the destination can never be reached. If you’re able to take that journey and enjoy it, knowing that there will always be endless room for improvement, then you be ah’ight.
You can get a good education anywhere, but what made Stanford special for me was two things: 1) it granted me the room to make a space for myself if I didn’t see one, which in turn, gave me the confidence to create a space for myself when I officially entered the outside work; and most importantly and life-changing is 2) the community it allowed me to build.
So what I say to all of you is that “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen porta-potties on fire from a helicopter above Woodstock 99. I’ve seen Charlize Theron glitter in the dark from the backstage wings of the Oscars. All of these moments and far better ones are waiting to be experienced and marveled at by every one of you. It’s time to live.
My point is that if you’re a tortoise – emotionally, economically, intellectually, artistically, or otherwise – don’t despair. You have the rest of your life to create the inventions and the stories that the world needs. Graduates, carve your own marble until you release the invention or story that is yearning to breathe.
I guess what I’m trying to say is life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with and you’ll be drunk, most of the time.
