Good Evening Graduates.

Graduation speeches are usually about how your future is bright, how you’ll succeed and go far. These Grad speeches are about hope and change and turning points. I am supposed to tell you that you are the best of the best, the sharpest knife, the brightest bulb, and that you can do whatever you want and be whatever you want. I’m supposed to make you feel successful . But I don’t want to lie to you, so I’m not going to tell you those things. I’m not going to tell you that you are great because it’s hard to even define what great is, and special probably doesn’t exist.

School is designed to make you feel like success can be reached. Like it’s attainable. In high school there is the top 5% of the class. There are A’s B’s and C’s. There are valedictorians and grade point averages. There are rubrics telling you how exactly to do well on any given assignment. High school gives you goals gift wrapped and delivered to you. You’re told how you should spend your time, and given convenient ways to rebel.

Real life is not so simple. It’s messy. There is no real way to objectively measure your performance in Real Life. There is no rubric for being a good person. There are no instructions to how to solve every problem. There is no top 5% of the class of life.

Everyone is mediocre. Leading mediocre lives. People have problems getting up in the morning, finding words, living up to their expectations. Everyone is mediocre and you are not the exception.

Even people you think are the exception aren’t the exception. “Successful” people aren’t the exception to the Rule of Mediocrity. When you glorify your idols or even your peers, you don’t see them as full people. You are putting them up on a pedestal. Elon musk isn’t a model. Beyoncé isn’t an influential physician. Your doctor wants to spend more time with his kids. Most people don’t know who won Nobel Prizes this year.

If you expect yourself to be extraordinary, amazing, successful, recognized, you will look down at what your life is really like and be disappointed. That sucks. That leads to depression.

Find joy in the kind of life you really lead. Enjoy the processes. Enjoy waking up in the morning. Enjoy the heat of the sun on your skin, Enjoy air conditioning.

Enjoy the challenges. Enjoy laughing. Enjoy spending time with your friends. Enjoy working hard to get better at something. Enjoy the feeling of getting better. Enjoy the recognition that you do get. But don’t expect to be the best.

You are like everyone else. Embrace it, Enjoy it. Have realistic expectations and enjoy the everyday things. Those joys are so much more real.