Harvard’s President to the Class of 2025: A Speech with a Lesson for Trump | EUROtoday

I see you this morning not as teams of graduates separated by School however as one Harvard—a group certain by the shared reason for in search of data, of buying knowledge, and of serving society—a group composed of exceptional people who take their probabilities moderately than relaxation on their laurels. We collect as we speak to acknowledge your achievements and to have fun your excellence.

Here, amongst beloved colleagues and mentors, and distinguished and devoted school and employees, you might have discovered to contemplate curiosity a state through which to reside, open all the time to the ever-present risk of private development.

I implore you to carry quick to that lesson after your levels are conferred as we speak. The world as it’s tempts us with the lure of what one would possibly generously name snug pondering, a behavior of thoughts that readily convinces us of the deserves of our personal assumptions, the veracity of our personal arguments, and the soundness of our personal opinions, positions, and views—so dedicated to our beliefs that we search info that confirms them as we discredit proof that refutes them.

Though many could be loath to confess it, absolute certainty and willful ignorance are two sides of the identical coin, a coin with no worth however prices past measure. False conviction saps true potential. Focused on satisfying a deep want to be proper, we will willingly lose that which is so usually gained from being incorrect—humility, empathy, generosity, perception—squandering alternatives to increase our pondering and to vary our minds within the course of.

My hope for you, members of the Class of 2025, is that you simply keep snug being uncomfortable.