It’s graduation season. We are celebrating two in our family this year: Sammie, our oldest, finished her MBA and Juliet, our youngest, graduated from college.
Of course, graduations mean graduation speeches. Like carols at Christmas and pumpkins at Halloween, the commencement address is foundational to the season. A good speech can make all the difference in a 3-hour ceremony under the hot sun for both the parent begging for shade or the massively hungover graduate dying to get out of their cap and gown. (To be fair, often the students aren’t the only ones nursing hangovers.)
It’s very rare to get a timeless speech that resonates long past the ceremony like Steve Jobs at Stanford or David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” address at Kenyon. (Interestingly both of those speeches were given in 2005; worth checking out if you aren’t familiar with them.)
In defense of the all the well-meaning graduation speakers, the commencement address is a tough gig. You’re tasked with trying to deliver something original, funny and profound in 15 minutes to a jaded, hungry and tired audience more preoccupied with their next meal, drink or nap than anything you have to say. I enjoy public speaking, but I’ve never found myself wanting to trade places with a commencement speaker.
Jokes and relatable anecdotes from one’s life are standards to the genre (that’s why comedians have an advantage). But ultimately the audience expects the speaker to come to the stage with pithy, invaluable life advice. Once again, not easy; I’m glad it wasn’t me on stage at Camp Randall in Wisconsin in front of 50,000 people this past weekend.
Having said that, I can see the value for the speaker in writing a commencement address. Much like how many life coaches recommend people draft their obituaries as a way of crystalizing their mission and purpose in life, writing a grad speech forces you to reflect on what life has taught you.
As regular readers of this blog know, I’m a firm believer in the power that comes with middle age (or our peak years as I like to call them). No matter who you are, what you’ve accomplished or your chosen field, after living the daily grind of work and life for 25+ years you have something of value to share with a young person.
While you may be like me and want no part of the commencement speech, it’s worth taking the time to think about and write down what life has taught you. If you’re really brave, perhaps you’ll share with a recent graduate or two.
To make it easier, don’t force yourself to craft it in the form of a speech, just write down three pieces of advice or life-lessons. Lest you think I’m afraid of my own assignment, here are my three:
Lesson #1: Never forget that one of the most important decisions you’ll make each day is what to think about.
We cannot control our emotions, events, or the actions of other people, but it is firmly within our power to control what and how we think. As Wallace notes in “This Is Water,” too often we place our minds on autopilot, deferring to our “default settings.” We march through life hypnotized by whatever thoughts our minds choose to conjure in a given moment, unaware of how our biases and inherent self-centeredness colors our view of reality.
Because what we think about or focus on determines our destiny, the choice shouldn’t be left to our unconscious mind, emotions, or, worst of all, the whims of others.
I’m not suggesting that you can turn off unwanted thoughts like they’re a light switch or “the power of positive thinking” is the answer to every tough situation. What I am saying is that developing an awareness for how your mind processes experience and deciding how you will direct your mental energies are essential skills that can be learned and honed with practice and discipline.
Bottom line – learn to master your mind or it will master you.
Lesson #2: Don’t let your fears be stronger than your hopes.
Like the first lesson this easy to say and hard to do. Because the future is unknowable, all human beings are prone to worry about it. Subduing our fears about the future takes hard work, especially as you get older and the number of things to worry about increases.
It’s so easy to allow anxiety and fear to get the better of us, especially when the world is full of chaos and uncertainty. Hopes are easy to dismiss or discount, especially when things aren’t going well. And make no mistake, life will bring you challenges.
Yet it’s in these moments when hope makes all the difference. Sometimes it’s all you have. Hold onto it with all your might.
Lesson # 3: Never think of happiness as a zero-sum game.
Graduates want to know the secret to living a happy life as they enter the adult world. Of course, there is no secret. Or rather, there is no one secret that works for everyone. It’s up to each of us to discover the life that will make us happy.
But there is a universal truth about happiness which the late Pope Francis articulated beautifully, “Life is good when you’re happy, but much better when others are happy because of you.”
Always bring an abundance mentality to the table and never place limits on the amount of happiness that’s available to you and others. I realize that runs counter to what we hear in much of our political discourse these days. Everything is transactional: they win, I lose and vice versa.
This is not a new phenomenon. Humans have struggled with scarcity thinking when it comes to happiness for eons. When we look at happiness in this fashion, all we accomplish is limiting what we can achieve, not to mention it makes our world colder and lonelier.
The wisdom of every great, timeless religion or philosophy is consistent on this point: the more you give, the more you get. To paraphrase Dorothy Day, happiness is like love, there’s never enough until we start to give it away. Make the happiness of other people your primary concern, and you will be repaid in ways you never could imagine.
For the record, I make no claim to have mastered these lessons. Learning how to live well is the work of a lifetime. If I’ve gotten better at anything as I’ve aged, it’s paying attention to and being honest with myself about my tendencies. You can’t begin to grow until you’re clear and honest about where you are.
There you have it, my three pieces of advice for graduates, delivered safely from the keys of my laptop and far from any graduation podium. I encourage you to give it a shot. It’s harder than you think, but also very worthwhile.
And my best wishes to all the 2025 graduates, especially my two.