明星

I urge you to take chances, experiment and understand that there is no single path forward in a meaningful life. There is just taking stock at each stage of your life, to make sure you are in a role that allows you to be the change you want to see in the world, and that every day, you are doing work that you actually love to do.

I have no idea what is the right amount of space in your head for you to keep for yourself and how much you owe the world. That’s for you to say. I don’t know what to tell you. Nobody does. You have all you need: You have minds of your own.

My own sense of well-being and purpose in the world. That comes from studying the world feelingly, with empathy in my work. It comes from staying alert and alive and involved in the lives of the people that I love and the people in the wider world who need my help.

Curiosity, Creativity, and Self-Improvement: These are Penn values. They are your values. Use them often, keep them sharp, and they will serve you well, whatever shape the future takes.

When I say kindness, I’m not talking about “being nice.” I’m talking about being able to hold your own heartbreak, so we can go on living — go on resisting, go on building, go on healing.

It’s the series of decisions you make when your values conflict: GPA or Family. Creativity or security. Loyalty or personal growth. Love or Money. Your path is guaranteed to be paved with these decisions.

You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world and after you walk through those doors today, you will only ever have two choices: love or fear. Choose love, and don’t ever let fear turn you against your playful heart.

Over the many years of practicing, I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

Be curious, not cool. Be virtuous and purposeful. Do good things, help others. Do not get frozen in the ice of your own indifference. Don’t confuse success with excellence, those Benjamins are a means not an end. Do not descend too deeply into specialism, educate all of your parts, you will be healthier.

Duke Class of 2021: I wish you lives with Desmond’s kind of love: Love for our neighbors—and for people who feel like they’re a world apart. Love for justice—defined by a spirit of mutuality and community. Love for a world where we don’t need to win at someone else’s expense, even if they’re Tar Heels—where we can win together.

Everything I’ve done in my life is a result of persistence. And I challenge all of you to do the same. We’ve all had a New Orleans education. I lived in New Orleans for four years as well. Cultivate what you’ve learned, make something special out of it. And never give up.

I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?

Impermanence is the natural state of the universe. Everything changes, all the time. Sometimes those changes are so imperceptible we’re not always conscious of them. But nothing stays the same forever. And this fact of impermanence is something we’re all aware of.

It’s OK to be scared. In fact, if you weren’t scared, I’d be scared for you. But let me repeat something that the most extraordinary, certainly one of the most extraordinary men I’ve ever known said. “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Let your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

No matter how cliché it may sound, you will never truly be successful until you learn to give beyond yourself. Empathy and kindness are the true signs of emotional intelligence. Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of results…trust your gut……keep throwing darts at the dart board…..don’t listen to the critics and you will figure it out.