Why i wasnÌt picked as commencement speaker
Dear graduating class of 2005,
Congratulations! You did it! You are now officially on your way! You made it! All your dreams and hopes for your future are coming true! Look at you, all proud and confident! You will reach for the stars! And if you fail, you will still be way there up in the sky with the clouds, and the airplanes and all the little birdies! Hooray!
Okay, how did that bullshit feel? Pretty good? Good.
Because if this university education canÌt do anything to actually advance your job and or life prospects for the next five years, at least for one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars you should get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I mean, itÌs what you paid for. But just for an extra treat, my dear graduates, this morning I am going to give you a real piece of advice. And luckily itÌs free, which is good, because thatÌs all the free ride youÌll be getting from here on out.
Dear graduates, I tell you the truth, your adult from this point is going to be one long series of disappointments. They will come one after another, as you realize that the life you had pictured for yourself has absolutely nothing in common with the opportunities offered by reality. Your hard work in school these past four years will not pay off. No one cares that you graduated from this formidable institution Ò with no work experience you are a liability to the company you want to work for. In fact, that 3.94 GPA you worked so hard to get: donÌt even put it on your resume; itÌs intimidating to interviewers who are less smart than you are. They may be stupid, but not stupid enough to hire you. If you end up working for them, your superior intellect will be viewed with suspicion, and you will not move up in the company unless you devote your free time to ass kissing and/or taking the boss out to strip-clubs. Otherwise, you will have to prove yourself again and again and again by working harder, only to be rewarded with more hard work. If you can work x amount, next month you will be given 2x work, and thatÌs math that you can apply! No one will respect you until you are at least thirty five years old, you will be very very poor as you watch your dreams slip slowly away: one by one by one.
Yes, there are many surprises in store for you as you begin your new life as an adult. For example, you may have dreamed of moving to California to become a famous actress. Surprise! There are three million young women just like you with that exact same dream! And many of them happen to be thinner and taller than you! And while you all duke it out for waitress jobs in a city completely glutted with pretty faces, you will be surprised to learn that LA happens to be the most expensive place to live in the world, and unlike your hometown community, nobody gives a rats ass if you were the star in your local schoolÌs production of Fiddler on the Roof.
You will find out that you are small and insignificant, under qualified, underemployed, and under the radar. The most important lesson you will learn is that you are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are not the precious little child of God for whom the sun rises and sets. You just another poor shmuck, just like the rest of us, and the world does not owe you any favors.
So my dear class of 2005, I congratulate you on bucking up today, because every day after this one is going to be just a little bit worse. Every day after this one youÌre going to have to work just a little bit longer, run just a little bit faster, fight just a little bit harder, not for fame and fortune but to make it through the day so that you can get up and do it again tomorrow. There are no fairy godmothers, no castles on a cloud, no A+Ìs, no happily ever after.
Oh, and wear your sunscreen. Or you will get cancer, you poor naive children.