Perhaps you’ve seen or read about this spring’s college graduates booing their commencement speakers. New York Times columnist Molly Jong-Fast writes that the frustration with some commencement speakers reflects anxiety about the economic future.
Today’s recent graduates have reason to be concerned. Speakers focus on artificial intelligence boosterism. Graduates already know A.I.’s growth is inevitable. Yet a bot will reject your job application. It’s hard to embrace A.I. when it’s the very gatekeeper to employment.
Many of today’s graduates enter a shaky economy already in debt from student loans. A joke going around says: “We bought our son a new car for his college graduation. Such a practical gift, since he’s probably going to be an Uber driver. We’d even be happy if he drove for Lyft.”
Jong-Fast’s point is that commencement speakers fail to acknowledge the uncertainty graduates face and feel.
So, what should we tell new graduates?
I would give them a speech on character and integrity.
Something like this:
Good afternoon.
Graduates, family members, faculty, and friends:
First, congratulations.
Today, you are receiving a diploma.
But I want to begin by telling you something that may sound strange on a day like this:
Your diploma is not the most valuable thing you are taking with you.
Your reputation is.
Unlike a diploma, your reputation is always in the “act of becoming.”
Life will throw you curveball after curveball.
Each one will challenge who you are and who you are becoming.
Sometimes one event will shape who you will be, but that’s the exception rather than the norm.
How you respond to what life throws your way will shape your integrity and character over time. Each choice, decision, act of courage, or compromise, made one at a time, is character-building.
For most of your lives, adults have asked you what you want to be when you grow up.
A doctor?
A teacher?
An engineer?
A journalist?
A business owner?
But I’ve come to believe that the question is wrong.
The better question is:
What kind of person do you want to be?
Because careers change.
Technology changes.
Industries rise and fall.
Entire professions disappear.
The world you are entering today is changing faster than any generation before yours has experienced.
Yes, I know you are tired of hearing that artificial intelligence will transform jobs. You already know it.
Politics will continue to divide people.
The economy will rise and fall.
New technologies will appear that seem certain to change everything.
Some will.
Most won’t.
But amid all that change, one thing remains remarkably constant.
Character matters.
The Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
That sounds simple.
It isn’t.
Throughout your lives, you will encounter people who say one thing and do another.
People who preach honesty yet practice deception.
People who preach accountability yet avoid responsibility.
People who preach family values yet betray their families.
People who preach patriotism while undermining the institutions that make self-government possible.
People who preach faith yet show little grace.
People who preach freedom while trying to silence others.
You’ll find them in politics.
You’ll find them in business.
You’ll find them in the media.
You’ll find them across every profession and every ideology.
The temptation will be to join them.
Because hypocrisy often appears profitable.
For a while.
The people who cut corners often get ahead.
The people who tell comforting lies often attract larger audiences.
The people who tell others what they want to hear often become wealthy, powerful, and influential.
But only temporarily.
Because truth is stubborn.
Eventually, reality demands payment.
Reality always wins.
The great challenge of your generation is not merely determining what is true.
It is deciding whether you will live by the truths you already know.
You already know that kindness matters.
You already know that integrity matters.
You already know that honesty matters.
You already know that courage matters.
The difficult part isn’t learning those values.
The difficult part is practicing them when doing so becomes expensive.
Especially when no one is watching.
Especially when there is a price to pay.
Especially when it would be easier not to.
As a journalist, I spent much of my life pursuing truth.
People often ask what journalism is.
The answer is surprisingly simple.
Journalism is the art of truth-telling.
Not a perfect truth.
Not final truth.
But the ongoing effort to separate what is true from what merely feels true.
That effort matters because democracies cannot function without it.
Neither can relationships.
Neither can friendships.
Neither can families.
Neither can careers.
A life built on illusion ultimately collapses under its own weight.
A life built on truth is remarkably resilient.
If I could offer you one piece of advice today, it would be this:
Live a truth.
Not someone else’s truth.
Not a partisan truth.
Not a fashionable truth.
Find what you genuinely believe is right, good, and worthy, and align your actions with it.
Let your life be the evidence of your character.
Because the world already has plenty of people who can tell you what they value.
What it desperately needs are people willing to demonstrate it.
In the end, your success will not be measured by your title.
Or your salary.
Or the size of your house.
Or the number of followers on your social media account.
It will be measured by a much simpler question:
Did your actions match your values?
Did you leave the people around you better than you found them?
Did you tell the truth when it would have been easier not to?
Did you have the courage to stand alone when necessary?
Did you live the life you claimed to believe in?
If you can answer yes to those questions, then no matter what happens in the years ahead, you will have achieved something far more important than success.
You will have achieved integrity.
And in a world increasingly filled with performance, spectacle, and noise, integrity remains one of the rarest and most valuable things a human being can possess.
Congratulations, Class of 2026.
Now go build a life that proves what you believe.
Thank you.