If called upon to give the commencement address at a certain liberal arts college in the American southwest

Hey ya'll. You made it. I'll try to make this brief so we can all get out of here.

If I could time travel I would go back and find the guy I was back in college and kick his ass. (Someone here today is sitting in his seat right now.) But here I am anyway. I'm already not that guy anymore. So I guess education did something for me after all. I'll leave it to you to sort out the paradoxes. And the pronouns.

You'll understand this some day. We all look back and wish we'd worked harder.

Today I want to congratulate you on your accomplishment. Completing college is not an easy thing to do. Learning to think is not just a cute catchphrase for the brochure: if you can finish four years here you are prepared to do anything you want to. Unfortunately, the real work is only about to start.

This place changed my life, as I'm sure it has already changed yours. I can't tell you what to with the rest of your life. Neither can the college. Read the fine print- no one ever promised to help you find your purpose. Or a job. But you have the tools to get it done.

The real test of your education begins now.

The world is not a meritocracy. In fact, some employers prefer to avoid exceptional people and hire average workers instead. They're easier to control. But you went to school here, and you know how to think. That makes you a little bit dangerous. Maybe. But no one out there thinks you're special. Get over it. You're just going to have to prove them wrong all over again.

This gives you license to ignore the naysayers. You still have to learn to live with them, or at least work with them. Many of these people will be your coworkers. Some of them will be your boss. You don't get the luxury of choosing your colleagues any more than you were granted the luxury of choosing your family or who graduates with you today.

Don't let that be an excuse to give in to cynicism. Continue to learn and to pursue the things that interest you. Just be prepared for it to get harder. The cushion of college life is about to be ripped out from under you, replaced by the banality of everyday life and people whose interests do no overlap your own. Do not despair. The purpose of education is to prepare students to enter the real world. Graduates leave this place at a regular, annual interval, and they do fine.

Find the people you admire out there, and spend time with them. Luckily for you, this campus is not the only source of interesting people in the world.

Not everyone you meet will be as privileged as you are. Maintain some perspective and be patient with them anyway. David Foster Wallace has some good advice on this topic: the real meaning of education is that we get to choose how we react. And when you're done looking that up, go read Bill Watterson's graduation speech. (It's better than this one, but hang in there I'm almost done.) Kenyon College has some interesting alumni. But I'm starting to ramble ...

The time for thoughtful contemplation is mostly over. I am by no means asking you stop thinking. Quite the contrary- if you don't spend the rest of your life continuing to learn new things you have missed the point of the last four years. But now you have to make a place for it on your own.

It's no longer good enough to do the reading and understand it. That won't get you far enough. It is time to change your focus and do things. If you are a writer, write. If you are a dancer, dance. Programmers write software. Bakers bake. It is time to make things. And not everything you make will be be any good. Actually, most of it will be crap. (I think Ira Glass said that.) But you have to keep going. Don't let a failure turn into an excuse to stop trying.

If you'll allow me to get practical for just a moment, I would advise that unless you've already met the love of your life, avoid long term commitments until a few years have passed. Unless you know for a fact that more school is a necessity for your chosen profession, you should look at graduate school with skepticism. You are not done growing. The next few years will be chaotic. Don't buy a house just yet. Even a pet gold fish would be pushing it. The lighter you travel, the easier it will be to get through.

Money isn't everything, but you better get control of yours. I graduated into a mild recession and then rode out the great recession a few years later, just as I was trying to transition into a second career. And all before my 10 year reunion.

Aristotle warned us in the Politics:

...the citizens must not live a mechanic or a mercantile life （for such a life is ignoble and inimical to virtue), nor yet must those who are to be citizens in the best state be tillers of the soil （for leisure is needed both for the development of virtue and for active participation in politics).

Aristotle was four years ago for most of us here today, but we can still draw some conclusions: you should run from anyone who uses money to keep score. Money is fuel. That's all. If you run out or mismanage the fuel you have, your debts can give other people power over you and your ability to make your own choices.

That said, and again (I hope) channelling Aristotle, don't forget to make time to blow off work. Make time to focus. Make time for relationships. Work will dominate everything if you let it.

Richard Feynman famously asked "What do you care what other people think?" It was actually his wife Arlene who was asking, because Richard was ashamed to use the pencils she had given him with his name inscribed on them, and she had caught him trying to scrape the engraving off, but the wisdom is still there.

Out there in the real world it can be difficult to remember. So I'll reiterate: "What do you care what other people think?" Don't ever stop thinking for yourself just because you've moved on from this wonderful, enigmatic, and sometimes infuriating place.

It should go without saying that you certainly shouldn't believe everything anyone tells you. Especially if I'm the one giving the advice.

Congratulations, and I wish you the best of luck.