5½ Timeless Commencement Speeches to Teach You to Define Your Own Success

by Maria Popova The great and terrible truth of clichés, why success is a dangerous bedfellow, and how disappointment paves the way for originality. It’s that time of year again, the time when cultural icons and luminaries of various stripes flock to podiums around the world to impart their wisdom on a fresh crop of graduating seniors hungry to take on the world. After last year’s omnibus of timeless commencement addresses by J. Across them runs a common thread of what seems to be as much a critical message, the message, for the young as it is an essential lifelong reminder for all: No social convention of success should lure you away from or could be a substitute for finding your purpose and doing what you love. It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Full transcript here. As you grow, you’ll realize the definition of success changes. I want your loves to be multiple.

Envisioning Peace: Can Futures Thinking Aid Conflict Resolution? “Why is it so hard to break out of cycles of violence?” This is the question Tessa has been thinking about since she was a child. While it may seem woefully naive for many of us, Tessa is motivated by a desire to get back to the fundamental issues, and begin to look for real solutions. When she temporarily left IFTF to go to Fordham University for graduate school, Tessa began to think critically about the role that futures thinking might play in trying to answer this question. Two pivotal angles ... What Tessa found were two pivotal angles that highlighted a systematic need for futures thinking within conflict resolution. The second pivotal angle—which is closely drawn from work by Elise and Kenneth Boulding—focuses on a global perspective. How can we build a road to a destination we cannot yet see? Futures thinking can play a critical role in building these new-found, realistic, and internally consistent images of peaceful futures that may eventually guide us to that space.