From English teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s commencement address to
the Class of 2012 of Wellesley (MA) High School ..
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.
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