To the Graduating Class of (Insert Year)

I'm keeping a commencement address on file, just in case I get the call.

I am not, by any rational metric, qualified to give a university commencement speech.

I’m not famous. I’m not a prominent politician, accomplished scientist or successful athlete. I have not brought any particular glory to my alma mater through my status as an alumni; I am well short of the cut line for “notable people” tab on said school’s Wikipedia page.

The odds that they are going to call me up and ask me to give a speech to freshly-minted graduates are extremely low.

They are not, however, zero.

This fact dawned on me just last week, when I watched a video of Ohio State University’s spring commencement, wherein the keynote speech—if you can call it that—was given by Chris Pan, a so-called “social entrepreneur” who used his time on stage to shill cryptocurrency, do strange calisthenics, and sing a terrible karaoke rendition of 4 Non Blondes’ 1993 hit song “What’s Up?”:

My friend DJ Byrnes has a thorough write-up of the disastrous speech on his newsletter The Rooster, and it’s worth a read:

Inside the worst Ohio State commencement speech ever

I cannot lie to you: I watched all 17 minutes of that speech; I apparently value my time that little. While it left me feeling a bit like I’d been spray-painting in an unventilated basement, it also gave me a sobering realization:

I might get asked to give a commencement address.

I mean, if this guy can get one? All bets are off. Maybe someone in university administration really liked my recipe for the Kentuckiana Hot Loin, or read my deep dive into the real story behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and thought “you know, I like how full of shit this guy is.”

Why they might call isn’t really any of my business.

I just know that I need to be ready when they do.

Now, I’ve written graduation speeches before. Last year, I took the imminent death of social-media-as-fun-place-to-be—a doomsaying perspective that I have not backed down on in the year hence—as a framing device to write a speech.

To the Graduating Class of 2023...

The year before, I took my 40th birthday as cause to write about 40 things I had to learn the hard way:

40 things I've learned the hard way

I still like both of those, but they’re both a little dated. Like, there’s obvious references to things that were happening when I wrore them, something that’s even more glaring with the one I wrote in 2021, which was very explicitly dealing with the trauma of COVID-19 showing up.

I need to prepare something a little more timeless. I can’t be updating this thing every year, y’know? I’ve just got to get a pre-write on file like a news organization preparing for an aging celebrity’s eventual obituary. My call might come in next week, or it might come in ten years from now, and I have to be ready.

Here’s my stab at it.

Getty Images / quavondo

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To the Graduating Class of (insert year)…

First off, congratulations!

You’ve worked very hard to get to the place you are today, and you should be proud of that. There is a chance that this is the last time you will ever be so explicitly fêted for your accomplishments. I have not put on a special outfit for the purposes of being congratulated in public for nearly twenty years. Embrace it, even if the outfit looks silly, doesn’t breath, and cost too much at the university bookstore.

Just because this might be the last time someone calls your name as you walk across a stage doesn’t mean it’s the last time you should get to feel proud of your accomplishments, though.

It’s easy to get on the hedonic treadmill and minimize your successes as you head into your working life. Fight against that. Take compliments when you get them, and pat yourself on the back when you don’t. Don’t get arrogant, but don’t be afraid to puff yourself up from time to time, either. Heck, if someone says something good about you or your work, write it down! You may need that motivation later on.

That said, please understand that you know nothing about almost everything.

Please do not take offense at this statement; I am not saying this as a person older than you looking down on your knowledge as a younger person. I am saying this as a person older than you who took many years to realize that I, too, know nothing about almost everything. This realization should not be troubling; it should be freeing.

Most of us are winging it most of the time.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek knowledge; in fact, quite the opposite. You should be asking questions every day, and then double-checking the answers you get. But don’t panic when you don’t know something, because most of us don’t. It’s the people who insist that they do know everything that get us all in trouble.

On the flipside, you know more than you think.

You are probably going to make a bunch of terrible decisions over the next few years. Frankly, I’ll be offended if you don’t, because it will make my bad decisions look worse in comparison. You will make the wrong decision about who to date, where to live, what to wear, how late to stay up and what to do when you’re up that late. On the big things, though, the things that people older and with more power than you insist are more complicated than you youngsters understand? They’re really not that complicated, and you’re probably right.

Now, a few other assorted tips:

Take your full lunch hour and use every single bit of your vacation time. The only reward you get for not doing so is more work.

Don’t type anything—in email, Slack, Teams, whatever work tool is common in [insert year]—that you don’t want read by the person that it’s about.

Never spend more than 72 hours consecutively in Las Vegas. (That one never changes.)

Get renter’s insurance.

Understand that that anonymous workplace survey might not actually be anonymous.

Don’t get drunk at work events, and remember that a club soda with lime in it is a great way to avoid any questions about why you’re not drinking.

Read books, but don’t read the ones about maximizing your productivity or optimizing your life. Reading a book about a shipwreck or an adventure in space is a far more productive use of your time.

Treat each job like you’re going to be there for a while, but be emotionally prepared for that to change on a moment’s notice. Companies get sold and stripped for parts, industries collapse, important people die unexpectedly. These things will largely be out of your control. Losing a job is, quite often, not about you at all, and you should try not to take it personally.

You do not need to move to a big city if you do not want to, even if you’re in the kind of creative field that supposedly demands it. Moving to a big city when you’re young is often a terrible financial decision. On the other hand, this may also be the only time in your life where you’re capable of making such an unwise decision, so you should still do it if you want to.

If you are generally nice and positive most of the time, it will have a more dramatic impact when you choose not to be. Pick your spots.

Get renter’s insurance. I already said that one, but one three-alarm fire in the apartment upstairs is enough to make you an acolyte for life.

Keep speeches short. The ideal best man/maid of honor speech is under three minutes long, and the ideal commencement address isn’t much longer.

Realize that some day, you may get the best opportunity of your life and it might be entirely by accident. You’ve probably been shorted some by accident or worse before, and you might not have even know when it happened. Don’t feel bad about making the most of whatever comes your way.

(Even if it’s giving a speech you’re not qualified to give.)

—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)

Do you have any advice of your own for this year’s graduates? Share below!