Graduation Speeches Worth Hearing (or Reading!)
As we approach the end of May, many are coming to that time of graduation, from…well, it could be any significant transition: finishing elementary school, middle school or high school for the younger set, with appropriate ceremonies to suit the age. All that is to say, there will be speeches. I am focusing here on some speeches which have been given at college graduations. I decided to check out a few books from the library (some speeches that were subsequently put in print form as a book, so the rest of us could be inspired, not just the folks who heard the speech in person). I checked out Anna Quindlen’s A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Here is a “new to me” website that offers a thoughtful discussion of Quindlen’s speech (that was never actually delivered—read and find out why). I heard about her book from Ann Patchett’s regular Friday video: “If you haven’t read it, it’s new to you.” Ann Patchett delivered a commencement speech herself at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, which became, in book form: What Now? . I would like to get my hands on a copy of that one, too. Back to Anna Quindlen. I enjoyed Quindlen’s book and it is worth the read. Here is one of my favorite quotes:
It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the pale new growth on an evergreen, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking. So many of us changed our lives when we heard a biological clock and decided to have kids. But that sound is a murmur compared to the tolling of mortality. (p. 26)
If you want a quick summary, you can go the James Clear route (short, but not poetic, and no lovely photos interspersed).
The second book I checked out, along with Quindlen’s, was David Foster Wallace’s: This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. A quote from Wallace’s speech:
You get to decide what to worship…Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
Wallace also talks of how we have to work to not think of ourselves as the center of the universe!
I think both speeches had much to recommend them and are worth the read.
I find that you can go down a very deep rabbit hole online, investigating other noteworthy speeches given at commencements. I just enjoyed listening to Neil Gaiman’s speech given in 2012 at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts. You can listen to his speech in its entirety on Youtube. Whether you have a graduate in your family this May, are one yourself, or just need a little inspiration, I hope you will take time to listen to some of these speeches and others you encounter. Congratulations to this year’s spring graduates! Happy reading!