9696 – Global | English Speeches, Books, coupons and online services ratings.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Graduates, this is the time to take your shots. Your life will go by fast. Give it your all. Stand up for yourself. Stay curious. Be a good citizen of the world. Don’t get crushed under the weight of your expectations. Know that the real victory in life is the long game – measure your success by how much you evolve, not necessarily how much you win. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
The lesson here is clear, and that is, if you’re hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt. If you’re in pain, help somebody else’s pain. And when you’re in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs. And in the process, you get to become a member of what I call the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.
As you leave Stanford, take your genius and your optimism and your empathy and go change the world in ways that will make millions of others optimistic as well. In the course of your lives, without any plan on your part, you’ll come to see suffering that will break your heart. When it happens, and it will, don’t turn away from it; turn toward it.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
