Probably one of the most hopeful days of the year:
Class of 2011, It is my pleasure to be able to speak to you on this great day for you and for us.
For all of the adults sitting on the stage, for most of the teachers flanking you on either side, and even for many of your parents and relatives, this looks like one more graduation ceremony. Another wave crashing on the shore of the Bren Center like the many waves before and the swells following in the year to come. The predictability and dependability of this yearly event carries the inevitability of one more repeat of Pomp and Circumstance or one more musical number in an episode of Glee.
However, this is our mistake, our blindness, and our missed opportunity. For there is not an “another” about today. Today is about newness, about firsts, about the unique, once in a lifetime gift that you are and will be in this world. As a class and as individuals, you are a new thing, not limited by the actions or even vision of those who have come before you, but blazing potential that we watch transfixed, as if by fireworks.
And while I am part of the past that you surpass, I want to leave you with one idea that makes sense from my limited vision.
Lives are defined by the limits we embrace; therefore, as you go forward live an expansive life that challenges the limits that other people, your circumstances, or the accepted realities of the world try to put on you. There is no limit to your possibilities at this moment, only to your courage and energy to chase them. There is no limit to your creative power to make new products, services, and ideas that change the world and improve the lives of all. There is no limit to your ability to embrace revolutionary digital changes in communication and relationship and form them into positive humanizing forces, and there is no limit to your capacity for love and gratitude and empathy and service. We are put on earth to share in the work of Jesus Christ, to serve and love those close by and sisters and brothers beyond our familiarity and beyond our sight.
There are no limits to a world where a tiny sister in India can bring comfort and attention to millions of the ignored and neglected.
There are no limits to a world where the most life changing invention of the century is now appearing every six months.
And goodness knows there are no limits to a world where a song by Rebecca Black can be downloaded a million times.
Embrace the beauty and possibility and expansiveness of your dreams, and remember the school where so many of those dreams were born.