A Stoics commencement speech

Thank you Principal _______ for that kind introduction, and for the opportunity to speak to this graduating class of 2018.

Before you walk across this stage and try not to screw up the handshake-diploma hand off, I would like to impart a few ideas I think are worth understanding.

Number one: The world does not care about you.
It wants to squeeze every ounce of production, or consumption, out of you.

If you are working for it, or dating it, the world wants everything you have. Maximum effort is what is expected of you. In return, the word will give just enough to keep you from leaving.

The other side of that equation is the world wants you to consume as much stuff as you can. Through an exchange of dollars or through your time and attention. It wants you to want. If the world can convince you to want it enough, it will own you.

Number two: Life is suffering tainted by malevolence.
If you are not suffering right now, wait a while, you soon will be. Even if you are not, chances are someone in your immediate circle of friends or family is suffering. It is as inevitable as the turning of the earth.

People have an immense capacity for evil, and that includes you. You know what hurts you, therefore you know just how to hurt other people. You will do precisely that, unless you learn to control it.

Number three: Happiness is a fool's errand.
Waiting around for something or someone to make you happy is letting the world control your emotional well-being. Sovereignty in your own metal state is critical. Do not sub-contract your emotional well-being to anyone or anything.

Number four: You are dying.
Right now, at this very instant, you are dying. You cannot get back yesterday; it is gone. You cannot reach into tomorrow, it may never get here. You have right now, and that is all you have. Do something with it. Which takes us to number five.

Number five: Find some damn meaning in your life.
Meaning will be the antidote to the suffering and malevolence. If your life has meaning, if you are doing even the smallest things to make you a better human being, you will be making the world a slightly better place.

So that's about it.

Many of you think you are going to 'change the world'. I'm sure you will hear many times tonight from other speakers, valedictorians and such. Let me assure you, you will not.

If you do change the world, you may just make it worse. The world is infinitely complex.  Our world is filled with physical matter we barely understand, with countless interconnected systems we do not understand, and inhabited by billions of people we can't possibly understand. All working together and opposing each other at the same time. Like I said, infinitely complex. You are not smart enough to fix everything wrong with this world, this continent, this nation, this state, county, city or neighborhood.

Accept that most of you will do nothing 'special' with your lives. You will not cure cancer, end oppression, or invent a device to turn something useless into something useful. With one caveat. You could turn yourself into something useful.

You want to do something useful with your life? Here you go:

Find some small part of yourself that needs fixing and make the decision to fix it. Then find something a little bigger to fix, then fix that. Repeat this process until you die. If you run out of problems with yourself, start on your family, if you fix all those before you die, try working on your neighborhood.

If we all did this, we wouldn't need to change the world. The world would be working just fine.

(Many of these ideas I stole from Jordan B Peterson lectures and his book 12 rules for life)