Commencement Closing Remarks, 2004
May 16, 2004
Commencement custom accords the president the privilege of some final words. It is a privilege which I have come to cherish-but which I confess I have found also to be just a bit daunting. Why cherished?-because this is a moment so immensely and so rightly special in your lives; why daunting?-because in speaking to you now I feel-I really do-the difficulty of reaching across that great barrier of time and experience which separates who you are from what I have become. You are young-and I am not. Yours is the century just begun; mine is the century just ended. And yet-I do-I do know you; your education is my proud vocation; your future is bound up with my fondest hopes. My ambition for you-everyone of you, burns hot-and will last long: I know your capacity-and therefore your power-to make the world better. So for me then-this is a moment to cherish and yet a moment of some considerable anxiety.
And the question for this moment is the question of your future. What will it be? What will you make of your life? Or put more honestly-what will life make of you? These questions I know most of you have already asked-or will-in no more than ten minutes time when you leave this hall and emerge into a new and different world which will ask of you what has not been asked before.
Will it be life's "glittering prizes" that you want? I hope so. Fame justly earned, power fairly won, wealth honestly gained-these are the proper objects of an honorable ambition. But they are not alone enough-not if you are the true sons and daughters of this College-not if you are the women and men I think you are. If-in the end-success for you means only fame or wealth or power, you will discover-late if not soon-the bitter paradox that the moment of your greatest triumph will also be the moment of your greatest disappointment. Fame to what end? Power in what cause? Wealth to what purpose? Fail to ask-and to answer-these questions-then failure will be your certain destiny.
But there are other prizes-prizes which in the world's eyes do not glitter-but which I believe are very much worth the winning. Let me speak to you for a moment about just one of them.
Who really matters in your life? Really matters. Who is always there for you? Who knows the deepest secrets of your heart or the furthest boundaries of your wildest ambitions? Whose example gives courage when fear is at your throat? Whose counsel do you seek when the problem is just too big-the choice beyond your power to make unaided? Whose face comes to mind in unexpected places and at unexpected times-and offers you comfort in the moment and confidence for the future? Whose life is it that seems so right that you would gladly make it the basis of your own biography? To be that person in someone else's life may be life's greatest secret prize-because to be that person-always and unstintingly-demands the best in you. So fight-fight if you will-for the "glittering prizes" with all the cunning and all the fierceness that the quest demands.
But do not forget-and do not neglect-the quieter competition for the secret prizes which at the end of life's long sweep-will leave you not with fame, not with power, not with wealth-but with the abiding love of friends whose friendship you have earned and the profound satisfaction of having drawn from the deepest wells of your own humanity in the spirit of charity and the cause of hope.
