I’m here to tell you finding your purpose isn’t enough. The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose. Today I want to talk about three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose: by taking on big meaningful projects together, by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose, and by building community across the world.
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul.
The lesson here is clear, and that is, if you’re hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt. If you’re in pain, help somebody else’s pain. And when you’re in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs. And in the process, you get to become a member of what I call the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.
Facts and truth are matters of life and death. Misinformation, disinformation, delusions and deceit can kill. Here is what can move us forward: Science and medicine. Study and knowledge. Expertise and reason. In other words, fact and truth. I want to tell you why free expression by all of us and an independent press, imperfect though we may be, is essential to getting at the truth.
The face of power is not the same as the face of the people. And this has to change. I also want things to change but I can not do it alone. I need you and others with me to make the world more equal, more sustainable and more just. I know I’m not alone with this thought. I know many of you want the same and together we can make it a reality.
Here at Harvard you’ve been well trained. You must lead. You must get out there and as Dr. King would say, be a headlight, not a taillight! It’s your time, it’s your calling. My philosophy is very simple, when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up! Say something! Speak up and speak out!
But as I get farther away from my years here, I know that the power of this school is much deeper than weather control. It changed the very questions I was asking. To quote one of my favorite thinkers Abraham Joshua Heschel: “To be or not to be is not the question; the vital question is how to be and how not to be.”
While the legacy of enslavement, racism, discrimination, and exclusion still influences so much of contemporary attitudes, we must never conclude that it is too late to overcome such a legacy. For it is never too late to do justice.
I have loved this place since the day I arrived as a graduate student in 1992. Now you have given me the great honor of leading this University into the future, setting a compass by its constellation of brilliant—if sometimes unruly—stars. Let us summon the courage to be the Harvard that the world needs now.
If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier. We are struggling for a uniting world, but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the “he” for “she”.
With courage and purpose, with humility and with hope, with faith in the promise of tomorrow, let us march straightforward together, enduring allies in the cause of a world that is more peaceful, more prosperous, and more just.
When you tap into what it’s trying to tell you, when you can get yourself quiet enough to listen, I mean, really listen, you can begin to distill the still, small voice, which is always representing the truth of you from the noise of the world. And you can start to recognize when it comes your way. You can learn to make distinctions, to connect, to dig a little deeper. You’ll be able to find your own voice within the still, small voice.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
The world is now facing the choice between doubling down on the mistakes of the past or seizing the opportunity to do things differently. We have a generational opportunity and an imperative to use the recovery to shape a better, more gender equal and sustainable world. One that may finally be immune to the reversal of progress. Our actions and decisions now are what determine that future.
Love is love, and equality just is. You gotta roll up your sleeves and get to work every day until everyone gets it. You taught me that, you teach us all. So, let me say for everyone whose lives that you have made better, which is to say, for everyone, thank you.
The handwritten sign was a tool. TV’s a tool. The Internet is a tool. Social media is a tool. At the end of the day, tools don’t control us. We control them, and we can remake them. It’s up to each of us to decide what we value, and then use the tools we’ve been given to advance those values.
‘Stay loose, be smart, and go with love… and then leap. And then leap again. And then leap again’ Michelle Yeoh, Academy-award winning actress, advocate, and United Nations Development Programme Goodwill ambassador, offered the Harvard Law School Class of 2023 some advices during the Class Day celebration on Wednesday as they were poised to dive into “a presumably bright but unpredictable future.”
I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
How Yale’s newest graduates make their imprint on the world and on history will be determined by how well they handle fear and inspire faith, Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks told the seniors in his Class Day address on May 22.
