“Here’s the real game,” declared Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A. J. Brown to this year’s graduating class at Ole Miss. “You are your own operation. Your name is your brand … nobody is going to build it for you. Nobody is coming to rescue you when it gets hard.” This clip of his speech quickly circulated across sports and social media, drawing the curiosity of those interested in a pro athlete’s life wisdom. The full speech hasn’t been released yet, but the clip has been received with the internet’s blessing. If this is what A. J. Brown says it takes to be successful, saith the chronically online and the sports show talking heads, then we should pay attention to him.
With respect to Mr. Brown and his athletic dominance, “build your brand” is probably some of the worst graduation advice ever shared.
Because graduation speakers tend to be the most respected and successful among us, their speeches are frequently exercises in what’s called “survivorship bias.” Brown credits his success to his intense, hustle-focused worldview. What we don’t see, however, are the number of people who share Brown’s worldview but have faltered, failed, or floundered along the way. If there are tens of thousands who believe the same way as Brown and haven’t succeeded as he did, then maybe his advice isn’t worth consideration. Or perhaps, maybe his advice works, but only if we are gifted with the athletic genetics of a pro football player.
Our own podcaster, theologian, and author Paul Zahl offers insight into what makes a good graduation speech. In his book Peace in the Last Third of Life, he suggests that life can be divided into three parts: learning to live in the world, living in the world, and reflecting on life in the world. The best graduation speeches mark this transition from learning about the world to being in the world and offer insights to that transition.
Whether the graduates pay attention and listen is another matter altogether. I cannot remember the names of my own commencement speakers from high school or college, nor do I remember a word that they said to mark the occasion. Still, a happy speech to commemorate a momentous occasion is not out of line, and a good speech will acknowledge the graduates’ upcoming life transition with wisdom and insight.
By that standard, the most lauded graduation speech (by people who laud such things!) comes from the writer David Foster Wallace. “There are these two young fish swimming along,” he told graduates from Kenyon College in 2005, “and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’” Wallace’s whole speech is a riff on this joke. He urges graduates to find something transcendent to pull them out of themselves, to realize what their “water” is, so that they can have a shot of a meaningful life in the world ahead of them.
Other knockout commencement speeches: comedian Stephen Colbert told Northwestern graduates in 2011 to give up on their dreams. “What if it’s a stupid dream?” he asks them. He shares how, in his own life, he’s had dreams that were stupid, but he could only understand how stupid they were with the benefit of age. Bill Watterson, the mind behind the immortal Calvin and Hobbes, opened up to graduates in 1990 about the pointless and soul-sucking nature of ambition. “You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure … having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.” When Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling addressed the Harvard class of 2008, before she became a divisive political figure, she chose to talk to them about failure. “Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.” All these, of course, are a far cry from A. J. Brown’s ode to hustle culture.
According to the best graduation speakers, the secrets to living life in the world are humility, love, escaping the default way of thinking, and the ultimate joy of serving others instead of self. Sounds gospel-y to me: a reflection on what makes an abundant life apart from worldly desires and the individual sufferings we all entail. It’s also the perfect opposite of what most of the world teaches, though most of us in that middle stage of life will testify to how climbing the ladder is a farce, how raising an income has diminished returns, and how most relationships in life are worth the cost of forgiveness. The tough part is not only that they don’t teach any of that in school, but also that it takes some real gunshots to the foot for those conclusions to sink in.
There was no speech at my five-year-old son’s “graduation” ceremony last week from preschool. They dressed him in a cap and gown, they gave him a fake “diploma,” and the kids sang a song to say thanks to their parents and teachers. Each kiddo came forward to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was refreshing, a reflection of the middle-class small town we live in. My son’s friends wanted to grow up and be veterinarians, police officers, bakers, and other similar down-to-earth jobs. There was only one doctor in the bunch. One spunky young girl wanted to be Elsa from Frozen. My son wanted to be an artist. None of them said they wanted to be YouTube stars. How lovely it was to see children express these humble (and countercultural) aspirations. Some dreams may be stupid, saith Colbert, but these were not.
As the class of 2025 enters the world in its fullest, my hope is that they figure out life pretty quick. I hope they recognize that they are more than a brand, and those who reduce a human being to a brand are not worth time or attention. I hope that they live their life in service to others so that, when life does get hard, people will line up around the block with offers of rescue. I hope they recognize that they’re swimming in the water of achievement and works righteousness, and they learn the ways it unhelpfully colors their habits and behaviors. I hope they learn to be content with being normal, in normal unathletic bodies with normal soreness and limitations. And I hope that, when they find unconditional love — from a friend, from family, or from God himself — they will never let it go.
Beautifully said, thanks Bryan.