To the College Class of 2026

I’ll be honest with you.

I don’t know exactly what world you are graduating into.

Nobody does.

That may sound like a strange thing to say at a commencement, because these speeches are usually supposed to come from a place of certainty. Someone stands up here and tells you what life is, what success means, what matters, what doesn’t, and how it all comes together if you just work hard and believe in yourself.

But the truth is, anyone who tells you they fully understand the world right now is either selling something or not paying attention.

You are graduating into a strange time.

Not the strangest time in history. People always think their moment is the strangest. But strange enough.

You are entering a world where the old maps don’t work as well as they used to. A world where careers change shape while people are still training for them. A world where intelligence is everywhere, but wisdom still feels scarce. A world where everyone is connected and a lot of people are lonely. A world where people can produce more, say more, share more, post more, and still feel like they have not quite touched the real thing.

And now here you are.

The Class of 2026.

Sitting at the edge of whatever comes next.

People will call this your entrance into the “real world,” but I’ve never liked that phrase. It makes it sound like the last four years were pretend.

They weren’t.

The work was real. The friendships were real. The anxiety was real. The exhaustion was real. The moments when you doubted yourself were real. The moments when you surprised yourself were real too.

College was not separate from life.

It was life.

And now life continues.

That is both the beautiful thing and the terrifying thing. There is no hard cut. No dramatic music. No official moment when you suddenly become the kind of adult you once imagined adults were.

You just keep going.

You wake up tomorrow, and you are still you.

Maybe a little more educated. Maybe a little more in debt. Maybe a little more proud. Maybe a little more uncertain.

But still you.

And that is where I want to begin.

Because one of the great pressures of this next stage of life will be the pressure to become impressive.

You will feel it everywhere.

You will feel it when someone from your class gets a great job.

You will feel it when someone posts the apartment, the engagement, the acceptance letter, the promotion, the trip, the clean kitchen, the clean life.

You will feel it when people ask, “So what are you doing now?” and you realize they are not asking a small-talk question. They are asking for a story. A label. A direction. Something that makes your life sound legible in under thirty seconds.

And you will be tempted to give them something polished.

Even when the truth is messier.

Especially when the truth is messier.

But I hope you do not spend your life trying to seem like you have arrived.

Arrival is overrated.

Becoming is better.

The people worth knowing are almost never the people who look finished. They are the people who are still reachable. Still curious. Still capable of changing their minds. Still willing to admit when they don’t know. Still able to laugh at themselves. Still open to being moved by something.

That is harder than it sounds.

The world hardens people. Not all at once. Quietly. One disappointment at a time. One humiliation. One betrayal. One failure. One job where nobody sees you. One relationship that does not become what you hoped. One year when your life does not match the picture you had in your head.

And little by little, people protect themselves by becoming smaller.

They call it being realistic.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes realism is necessary. You need to pay bills. You need to make choices. You need to stop waiting for life to become perfect before you participate in it.

But there is another kind of realism that is just fear in a grown-up costume.

It says: Don’t care too much.

Don’t try too hard.

Don’t believe in anything too openly.

Don’t risk looking foolish.

Don’t admit you still want something beautiful from life.

I hope you resist that.

Not loudly necessarily.

You don’t have to make a brand out of resisting it.

Just resist it quietly, in the way you live.

Do your work with care even when nobody is clapping.

Be kind when it would be easier to be sharp.

Let yourself be new at something.

Stay loyal to the parts of yourself that are not useful on a résumé.

Make room for friendship.

Call home sometimes, even when you have nothing dramatic to report.

Forgive yourself for needing time.

Forgive other people for being unfinished too.

And when you can, tell the truth.

That may be the most useful advice I can give you.

Tell the truth.

Not every thought you have needs to be announced. Not every feeling needs a microphone. But do not build a life that depends on you lying to yourself.

If you hate the path you are on, admit it.

If you love something that does not seem practical, admit it.

If you are scared, admit it.

If you need help, admit it.

If you made a mistake, admit it.

The truth does not fix everything immediately. Sometimes it makes things more complicated at first. But it gives you solid ground. And solid ground matters.

Because you are going to fail at some things.

I wish there were a more elegant way to say that, but there isn’t.

You will fail at some things.

You will disappoint people. You will misjudge situations. You will be overconfident when you should have listened. You will be too cautious when you should have moved. You will lose things you thought were certain. You will look back on versions of yourself and wonder how you could have been so sure and so wrong at the same time.

That is not a defect in your life.

That is life.

The question is not whether you can avoid failure. You can’t.

The question is whether failure makes you cruel or makes you wiser.

Please let it make you wiser.

Let it make you gentler with other people.

Let it make you slower to mock.

Let it make you better at noticing the person in the room who feels out of place.

Let it teach you that everyone, even the confident ones, is carrying some private uncertainty.

And when success comes, because I hope it does, let that make you generous too.

Do not use success to separate yourself from people.

Use it to make more room at the table.

That is one of the things adults do not say enough: success is not just about getting out. It is also about what you do once you have some power, some stability, some influence, some extra bread in the basket.

Do you build a higher wall?

Or do you hold a door?

You will have chances to answer that question.

Maybe not in grand historic ways.

Most moral choices do not arrive with dramatic lighting.

They come in ordinary form.

An email.

A conversation.

A person who needs patience.

A moment when you could take credit for something that was not all yours.

A moment when you could stay silent because speaking would cost you.

A moment when someone weaker than you is being treated like they do not matter.

That is where your life will actually be measured.

Not only in achievements, but in the small daily evidence of what you served.

And that is the word I want to leave with you.

Serve.

It is not a fashionable word. It can sound old-fashioned, or religious, or too humble for an age obsessed with self-expression.

But I think it is the right word.

Serve something.

Something beyond your own reflection.

Serve your family.

Serve your friends.

Serve your students, patients, clients, coworkers, readers, neighbors, children.

Serve a craft.

Serve a place.

Serve the truth.

Serve beauty.

Serve the small corner of the world that has been placed in your care.

Because a life aimed only at the self eventually becomes airless.

You can get everything you thought you wanted and still feel strangely hungry if none of it connects to love.

And love is really what we are talking about, though commencement speeches sometimes avoid saying it plainly.

Love is not just romance. Love is the force that keeps you human when the world tries to make you efficient.

Love is the reason you answer the phone.

Love is why you show up when it is inconvenient.

Love is why you keep trying with people.

Love is why grief hurts.

Love is why joy matters.

Love is why your life cannot be reduced to productivity.

So yes, work hard.

But do not worship work.

Be ambitious.

But do not let ambition make you cold.

Use the tools of your age.

But do not become a tool of your age.

Make a living.

But also make a life.

And do not wait until you feel completely ready.

Readiness is not a gate that opens one day. Most of the time, you become ready by beginning before you are ready.

That is how almost everything important starts.

The first day at the job.

The first draft.

The first apology.

The first apartment.

The first time you realize nobody is coming to organize your life for you.

The first time you have to choose between the person you have been and the person you are trying to become.

Begin anyway.

Begin clumsily if you have to.

Begin with doubt.

Begin with hope that is not loud, but still alive.

And years from now, when you look back on this day, I hope you do not only remember it as the day you graduated.

I hope you remember it as one of the days you were reminded that your life does not have to be perfect to be meaningful.

You do not have to become famous to matter.

You do not have to know the whole road to take the next honest step.

You do not have to impress the world before you are allowed to serve it.

Class of 2026, congratulations.

You have finished something real.

Now go begin something real.

Not perfectly.

Not all at once.

But with courage.

With humility.

With humor, please. You will need humor.

And with your heart still open enough to be changed by the life you are about to live.