David McCullough Jr., the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a longtime English teacher at Wellesley High School Gives the class of 2012 graduates a speech they will not soon forget.
From the speech I have concluded that Mr. McCullough has 5 Main Points he wants to get accross:
#1. You shouldnt have to be rewarded in order for you to act responisbility. He argues that you are supposed to graduate from high school anyway so celebrating this achievement is somewhat irrelvant in the larger scheme of things.
#2. Successful people do not wait around for opportunity to approach them but create opportunity for themselves through hard work, experience, and education.
#3. For everyone in the world who thinks they are a great athelete, student, or enginner, someone in the world that has greater prowess than them. He states that you strive to do what you enjoy and dont bother competing with everybody else.
#4. Boredom is the devil's playground. Stay active in the community and busy with learning new skills. Success will follow.
#5. It isn't the title, even the ones like Dr. or PhD., that defines your success, it is what you do with such a title that will shape how people will know you.
I would like to hear what lessons you derived from this speech and how you would apply them in Society?
On June 10 2012 05:01 GreEny K wrote: As I said in the other thread, I completely agree with everything he said.
But, I feel that parents need to tell their kids that they are special and so on.
Should they really? I mean obviously they shouldn't be told they're worthless, but is learning them their place in the world not better than making them think they're special and unlike anyone else?
Lol the whole special thing is just to make you feel good. But not that it's bad. Why the heck would someone say that at their graduation? That's just mean. It's supposed to be a happy time.
Anyways, everyone IS special. But that doesn't mean they'll automatically be successful. But knowing that you're special can help motivate you to be successful. Those who just think they're special and think they don't have to put effort into achieving their goals will probably fail, and it's their fault. It's all good.
Edit: I didn't watch the video though, so maybe he said they're not special in a way in his speech that still motivated them, so sorry if I misinterpreted it.
Good points I find, but is it necessary to make the huge statement of you're not special? If everyone ain't special, then what is normal? I'd say we all are special, but that doesn't mean that sitting on your ass is a good lifestyle.
And ending point: U never need no reason to party bro McCullough!
Yoshi Kirishima United States. June 10 2012 05:14. Posts 9002
Lol the whole special thing is just to make you feel good. But not that it's bad. Why the heck would someone say that at their graduation? That's just mean. It's supposed to be a happy time.
Anyways, everyone IS special. But that doesn't mean they'll automatically be successful. But knowing that you're special can help motivate you to be successful. Those who just think they're special and think they don't have to put effort into achieving their goals will probably fail, and it's their fault. It's all good.
Edit: I didn't watch the video though, so maybe he said they're not special in a way in his speech that still motivated them, so sorry if I misinterpreted it.
Of course, there are also the kinds of people who get motivated by negativity. For example, those who fail a test may be able to motivate themselves not to let it happen again, and then do really well next time.
Edit: oops sorry, meant to edit my previous post, not trying to comment on my own comment lol
Even though he's mostly right, he's a real dick about it. It's a commencement. You don't have to show up and tell everyone how great they are, but there's no reason to make them feel useless. He's not funny, inciteful, or otherwise interesting.
I also think it's interesting that he takes time to tell everyone that they have to make their own opportunities if they want to be successful, even though we're only seeing this because his dad is a really mediocre historian.
EneMecH United Kingdom. June 10 2012 05:16. Posts 218
Merely gratuitous cynicism. Everybody can be special in one way or another quite clearly, without it being a contradiction.
If you define "specialness" by superior material wealth relative to your peers, then not everyone can be special, but otherwise it's quite a juvenile speech.
Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell.
slytown United States. June 10 2012 05:19. Posts 1189
#3. For everyone in the world who thinks they are a great athelete, student, or enginner, someone in the world that has greater prowess than them. He states that you strive to do what you enjoy and dont bother competing with everybody else.
There are many people who need to be told this everytime they wake up. Out of all the points stated, I personally think this is the most important and is what living life is about.
Did the gas knock everyone out? Nope, just Jensen.
I hate to be a negative nancy but everyone is in fact special and unique.
This is about par for graduation speeches. Some washed up adult being cynical and trying to justify his own shortcomings in life with some tired rhetoric. It has nothing to do with the students and they're not paying attention to him anyway.
I got told at my graduation speech that Facebook makes you drop out of school and social networking is the devil in general. Now Facebook is a public company that has more money than most countries.
Funny they chose someone who's only "success" in life listed was being born into a successful family.
Last edit: 2012-06-10 05:33:46
Omnipresent United States. June 10 2012 05:31. Posts 871
On June 10 2012 05:26 Yoshi- wrote: So a guy which only success is being the brother of a successful person is teaching us how to be successful?
Son, and it really depends how you define success.
His dad has been successful at selling a lot of books, but garners almost no respect from academic historians. He's not wrong, crazy, or anything like that. He just doesn't ever say anything useful or interesting. He's really popular.
plated.rawr Norway. June 10 2012 05:31. Posts 1387
Seriousness aside, I agree with his message. Most people in the west have severely blown up self-images and expectations for their lives, which is brought forth by constantly being told "how good" or "how special" you are during your upbringing. That said, once they're in high school, the damage's already been done, and preventive measures as late as in the mid to late teens won't help, I'd think. Either, it'll just be ignored as "lol this guy's crazy, kekeke", or it'll actually be taken in, but instead of resulting in the person taking a more humble approach to live, it'll be turned into some sort of self-destructive "I'm not good enough"-thing.
The problem is parenting, really. Don't neglect your parenting, teach the kids the value of effort and humility early on, and don't just hand them out expensive clothes and fancy toys because they're being annoying.
I'm still looking for that "special" girl tho <3 ... This post is also a bit misleading. Some people are indeed special, maybe even one who will actually read this thread. This only applies to culturally limited people anyways. I don't really like the #3 one - You must compete with yourself the most and don't bother about anyone else - it will limit your skills ( the only "competition" you should note is inspiration from other people who are at the moment greater than you, but you should never be inconvenienced by comparisons ). The rest are kinda common sense tho, so nothing special.
On the #1 one ... I hope I won't "have" to celebrate graduation from university, I hate the custom. The only really smart one is #4, it is extremely simple, but it is the god damn golden rule indeed. Boredom is one of the things that might bring down a very potentially skilled person. Trying to learn new things and improve in your field, be it gaming, cooking, painting, designing, whatever...I believe you should have a focus ( until you maybe realize it's not the thing for you and go on to the next thing ) and also some side projects just to keep your mind active and also increase your abilities.
#2 Is such b.s. Lucky dumb people will be successful, and smart extremely unlucky people will be in a terrible shape. Sure you need to put in the hard work, and you will have higher chances of success, but with all the hard work in the world, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time....You will fail, there is no such thing as "hard work = 100% chances of success"
That being said, I believe success is irrelevant, if you manage to get in a happy state surrounded by the right likeminded people and you contribute to your community in the positive manner, that's all you need to do to be both happy and useful to society - which I believe should be every man's goal. Extreme success is most often a form of addiction to a weird kind of an ideal ( but to tell you the truth, I do love to see some extremely successful people such as Mike Tyson, Ali, Michael Jordan doing those amazing things in sports for example - and yeah, it's fun to see successful people, but it probably won't give you the better experience in life )
Edit: Note for people who think innovation wouldn't be possible in the society that I proposed, don't worry, the rule does not apply to geniuses, in whatever society they live, they will change the world forever. Gotta love the Tesla's and the Godel's of our civilization. Also, geniuses in art are so heartbreaking even..
Last edit: 2012-06-10 05:39:35
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Xpace United States. June 10 2012 05:35. Posts 2036
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EneMecH United Kingdom. June 10 2012 05:16. Posts 218
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