If theres one common thread amongst some of the best college commencement speeches out there, its failure.
Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.
And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
He was a giant star, easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation.
And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny.
In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasnt.
And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation.
And none of us are.
My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways.
I was working at a web link news show All Things Considered at the age of 20.
And even I floundered.
I had one skill as a person in my 20’s, and that is that.
For whatever reason, I was a good editor; I was a very decent editor from the start.
Like, I was bad- there is proof of this on the Internet.
Google, and youll see it.
For many years I made from $12,000 to $18,000.
That was my entire income some years.
Even then, you will probably not end up where you think you will.
Youre a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people.
We all were there.
There are some screw-ups headed your way.
Its a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb…
…Rehearsals over.
Youre going out there now, youre going to do this thing.
How you live matters.
It is, as always, a nice reminder that all of us fail all the time.
You just have to keep going.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Success Is Somebody Elses Failure
Success is somebody elses failure.
No, I do not wish you success.
I dont even want to talk about it.
I want to talk about failure.
Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure.
You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss.
You will find youre weak where you thought yourself strong.
Youll work for possessions and then find they possess you.
You will find yourself as I know you already have in dark places, alone, and afraid.
Failure is perhaps not just the absence of success.
Its a place we all inhabit from time to time.
Washington breaks it down into three different sections.
First, you will fail at life.
Les Brown, a motivational speaker, made an analogy about this.
Imagine youre on your deathbed and standing around your death bed are the ghosts representing your unfilled potential.
The ghosts of the ideas you never acted on.
The ghosts of the talents you didnt use.
And theyre standing around your bed angry, disappointed and upset.
They say, We came to you because you could have brought us to life, they say.
And now we go to the grave together.
Youve invested a lot in your education and people invested in you.
And let me tell you, the world needs your talents, man, does it ever.
Washington ends with the same sentiment that many commencement speakers take and one weve heard time and time again.
[Failure is] the best way to figure out where youre going.
