I think his speech is powerful because his message is not "use your college education to earn money and power" but rather "use your college education to be a nicer, more understanding, person" and I respect that a lot.
My commencement speaker rambled on for 34 minutes about his own life and achievements. He never once mentioned the graduates or the people who supported us, and never actually addressed us. It was awful. This on the other hand is absolutely fantastic.
What Green does in this speech is give these graduates (and us) a chance to understand this. They have worked to reach this point in their lives and should be proud of themselves but also thankful of everyone who helped them along the way.
These people who truly impacted their lives are unlikely to be famous and worshipped extensively in magazines, paraded as an inspirational and aspirational figures, yet at some point they would have offered a shoulder to cry on, a word of support and made sacrifices in order to give their child/friend/other the best opportunities and experiences at the expense of their own.
I'm graduating from college in a couple days and because of unfortunate timing and personal family matters, I'm not able to attend my commencement. However I think being able to read/watch John Green, someone I greatly admire, give this commencement speech is probably better then anything I would have heard or seen at my own commencement. So thank you John for giving this great send off to the graduating class of 2013. It means a lot to little ol' me.
We all get so caught up in what we want and what we need and often do this at the expense of other people's feelings. Being empathetic, kind and helpful isn't easy as there will be numerous times in life when people will test you but equally there will be times when you will test people. A bit of empathy, love and positivity can go a long way.
The last three minutes have a word: sonder. It describes the idea that every person has a life as full and complex as our own and that it is completely separate from our own.
This is the best thing ever. I love John. He says everything perfectly. I can't sum up my feelings. I've printed this of and carry it around with me. So funny, so true, so John..
Our existence is fleeting and we will all be forgotten but in that brief moment when we can make a difference to someone's life, that tiny spec of time in the history of the world when we can choose to either be positive or negative, it seems to me infinitesimally better to make a humble but good mark on the planet then a minor bad one.
woohoo kuwait was mentioned! :D we're a pretty small out of no where spot in the world so im quite happy bout this :p also absolutely brilliant john! :')
Both John Greene and Josh Whedon start their commencement speeches the same way. We all are going to die. Now that we know we are going to die... we can start living.
First of all, there's a University named after me?! :D Also, note that the Twilight reference gets nothing while the Harry Potter reference gets cheers. xD I "liked" the video after he mentioned lawn obsession. What is UP with that??
This speech reads/sounds like an updated version of David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College. Give it a listen. Job well done, though.
