Wellesley High School teacher David McCullough, Jr. gave a fantastic commencement speech to the school's 2012 graduates. I am reposting it (from my source) here.
Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the
board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and
gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege
of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful. Thank
you
So here we are... commencement... life’s great forward-looking
ceremony. (And don’t say, “What about weddings?” Weddings are
one-sided and insufficiently effective. Weddings are bride-centric
pageantry. Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the
groom just stands there. No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me
procession. No being given away. No identity-changing pronouncement.
And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on
tuxedos? Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief,
their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy. Left to men,
weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous,
almost inadvertent... during halftime... on the way to the refrigerator.
And then there’s the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of
you will get divorced. A winning percentage like that’ll get you last
place in the American League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than
weddings.)
But this ceremony... commencement... a commencement works every time.
From this day forward... truly... in sickness and in health, through
financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales
reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for
annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise,
you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma
as one, ‘til death do you part.
No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own
attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for
this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this
afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague,
wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal
level playing field. That matters. That says something. And your
ceremonial costume... shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all. Whether
male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom
queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll
notice, exactly the same. And your diploma... but for your name,
exactly the same.
All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.
You are not special. You are not exceptional.
Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh
grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent
purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no
matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save
you... you’re nothing special.
Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted,
bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held
you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained
you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled
you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been
nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned
over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been
to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.
Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp
with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your
picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school... and,
indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of
this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new
building...
But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.
The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher
can’t ignore. Newton, Natick, Nee... I am allowed to say Needham, yes?
...that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give
or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns. Across the country no
fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than
37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians... 37,000 class
presidents... 92,000 harmonizing altos... 340,000 swaggering jocks...
2,185,967 pairs of Uggs. But why limit ourselves to high school? After
all, you’re leaving it. So think about this: even if you’re one in a
million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000
people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on
Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred
yous go running by. And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your
planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your
solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the
center of the universe. In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe
has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. Neither can Donald
Trump... which someone should tell him... although that hair is quite a
phenomenon.
“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of
perfection! Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!” And I don’t
disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion
sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If
everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken
but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another--which springs,
I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread
of mortality--we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to
love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them
as the point--and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore
reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have
something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about,
something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the
social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is
it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself
doing it... Now it’s “So what does this get me?” As a consequence, we
cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic
becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of
Guatemalans. It’s an epidemic--and in its way, not even dear old
Wellesley High is immune... one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide,
Wellesley High School... where good is no longer good enough, where a B
is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College
Placement. And I hope you caught me when I said “one of the best.” I
said “one of the best” so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can
bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and
count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a
perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies
logic. By definition there can be only one best. You’re it or you’re
not.
If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope it’s that
education should be for, rather than material advantage, the
exhilaration of learning. You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles
assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is
ice cream... just an fyi) I also hope you’ve learned enough to
recognize how little you know... how little you know now... at the
moment... for today is just the beginning. It’s where you go from here
that matters.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge
you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and
believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in
any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too
find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison.
Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of
materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of
your advantages. And read... read all the time... read as a matter of
principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of
life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the
character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself.
Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And
do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock
subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements
there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the
ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the
afternoon.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an
achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a
nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You’ll note the
founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness--quite an active verb,
“pursuit”--which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around
watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President Roosevelt,
the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted
to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow.
The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil.
Locally, someone... I forget who... from time to time encourages young
scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point is the same: get
busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you.
Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both
hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point
out the illogic of that trendy little expression--because you can and
should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than
You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once... but because YLOO
doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)
None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted
as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades ought to be, the
fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what
happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the
mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the
air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the
world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off
your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free
will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they
will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the
6.8 billion--and those who will follow them. And then you too will
discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that
selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest
joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not
special.
Because everyone is.
Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.
David McCullough Jr
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