Below is the transcript of the commencement address I gave at The Bromfield School, to graduating seniors whom I had taught years before in 7th grade.
Five years ago, I welcomed you to 7th grade English with a picture of an iceberg on our wall and told you that it was super cool to be PERSPICACIOUS. I challenged you to be kind, bold, and honest.
Today, I want to remind you of those same principles—but with one additional caveat: each is a lifelong process, and we can only triumph in their pursuit if we are willing to trust the process of our own journeys, especially when life doesn’t proceed as we had once hoped it would.
Like now.
If you are confused, you are not alone.
If you are afraid, you are not alone.
If you are angry or worried or uncertain, you are not alone.
The good news is that by being honest about where you’re at, and how you’re struggling, you allow kindness to blossom. You allow other people in, instead of pretending that all is well.
I have four sons now, ages 11 years through 7 months, and it is fascinating to watch how each handles their emotions. My two-year old, Joshua, has no qualms about being precisely honest about how he feels—especially to a variety of older women who live in our neighborhood and whom he sees when we go for early morning walks.
He loves calling out the names of the various older women as we pass by their houses.
“Daddy, that’s Linda’s house! HI LINDA!”
When Linda does not immediately emerge, he’ll ask, “Where’s Linda?”
“She’s sleeping Joshua. It’s still super early, only five-thrity in the morning,” I will sagely reply, thinking we’ve settled that.
“LINDA! WAKE UP BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE YOU WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING THE SUN IS SHINING SO I WANT TO SEE YOU AND I AM SAD WAKE UP LINDA!”
And he repeats the process for Gladys, and Carol, and Annie, and Florence, whose houses we pass as we venture forth.
In return, these kind older women shower Joshua and our other boys with animal crackers and veggies sticks and chocolate and Twizzlers and old toys.
But honesty isn’t always so easy as we get older. Talking about how we really, deeply feel and what we really, deeply need, we fear, won’t commandeer us animal crackers and cool toys. It’s harder. We fear more, share less. The emotions get complex, their roots webbed, and their resolutions obscured.
But by refraining from honesty we deprive others of the ability to show us kindness. We convince ourselves that we are the only ones who think or feel a certain way. We are not.
And by sharing who we really are, we give other people the chance to see, accept, and love us. As you go from here, please be willing to share that you are sad, or hopeful, or excited, or scared, or giddy, or grateful. It’s the only way you’ll find the Lindas in your life, willing to come to their doors at 6am, groggy and half-asleep, but ready to see you for who you are.
So: be honest, and when others take that leap to be honest with you, be kind.
But there’s one more challenge I have to give you—and it’s a hard one: be bold. It’s hard because we so often believe a lot of lies about courage and what it really is.
Maya Angelou said that “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” This means that courage, or being bold, is never a single act, but rather a practice. It embodies the way we live—the thousand seemingly mundane decisions we make every day, that actually forge who we become.
When that same Linda-loving son, Joshua, was born, he died. He came out blue with no heartbeat. And instead of letting my wife and I hold him, we heard intercom shouts of emergency codes, and saw dozens of medical staff rush our hospital room.
I held my wife’s hand and wept.
I was thinking the worst as every second slugged past with no hope and no sound from our third son.
After forever, I heard the most beautiful noise I think I ever will: a shrill cry which made me laugh with joy. The doctor who shocked our son back to life, though, bewildered me. I will never forget our conversation after all had calmed down.
It was clear to me that what I saw as incredible courage and heroism in that doctor was another small action he and the other nurses had taken. The doctor was decidedly calm and matter of fact about the whole thing. Mundane.
What if the actions you deem normal and mundane could actually save someone’s life? The small smile you give, the kind text, the picked up piece of trash, the band aid you offer, the song you sing, the catch you have with a kid, the lunch you buy for someone, the hello wave, the goodbye hug, the sign you hold, the words you use, the way your eyes light up when someone walks into a room or your life.
It matters. It all matters. And when we give and receive enough of these small moments—-these tiny acts of courage and boldness—we build a life.
Today, I challenge and encourage you to build a life that is kind, bold, and honest. It will not be perfect. It will be, like me and all of us, a work in progress. But while it will never be perfect, you will also never be truly alone.
You will
indeed find those with animal crackers or electromagnetic shocks, ready to meet
you exactly where you’re at. And what’s more, you’ll do the same for others.
Thank you, and congratulations.
