It's graduation season and we at Believe would like to offer our congratulations along with those proud family and friends who are doing a lot of hugging and back-slapping about now. Whether the superstar graduated from high school or college, here's a hearty “well done” from all of us. We'd also like to add to the good advice being handed out to the graduates with a selection from some of the best commencement speeches of all time:
Mary Schmich, Columnist, Chicago Tribune gave one of the most famous commencement speeches without giving a speech at all. She wrote it for her column Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young in 1997:
“Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now...
“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Scripps College, 2009 “(I) expect and want that most elusive thing for you: to be happy, to find contentment in this life that we have that is far too fleeting. It may be that you will spend this gift of life in pursuit of scientific discovery, making great art, growing our nation's economy, or bringing relief to the world's poor. It may be that you will find the calling of your heart inside the creation of a loving family. Whatever it is that is calling to you, I urge you to ignore the voices that are telling you what you ought to do with your career and your family choices. You cannot authentically live anyone's life but your own. That is the deal life offers us. We as women have fought too hard and for too long against the narrowing confines of social expectation to have anything less.
Here at this wonderful point in your lives today, this hatching into your future, it is now time for you to embrace what was denied those who came before — it is now time to follow the passion inside your heart and listen to its voice above all others.
And what it says to you in the years ahead may surprise you and invert the notions of how you thought your life would turn out. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being confounded like this, especially in your early twenties. So yes, I am saying being happy is more than just something to hope for. It's something to expect.When you do this, when you tune out the critical voices in your head and embrace what your heart is saying, you don't just make your own life better. You make the world better."
Bono, Rock Star, U2, University of Pennsylvania, 2004:
"You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling, everything you've got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on. ”So, my question is : What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of this college?
My point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.”
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, Stanford, 2005: “Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity. Recognize that there will be failures, and acknowledge that there will be obstacles. But you will learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, for there is very little learning in success.”
Remembering you’re going to die, is the best way I know, to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, Harvard, 2008: “You might never fail on the scale I did. But some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case, you fail by default.”
Oprah Winfrey, TV host, philanthropist, Stanford, 2008: “I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school. And our life, the classrooms, and sometimes on this planet Earth school, the lessons often come dressed up as detours, or roadblocks, and sometimes, as full blown crises. And the secret I’ve learned to getting ahead, is being open to the lessons – lessons from the grandest universe of all, that is the universe itself.”
We hope the advice comes in handy sometime in your bright future (which we can help make a little more beautiful with our services here at Believe) and truly hope all your dreams come true.