

I want our young people to know thatthey matter that they belong so don't be

afraid you hear me young people don't beafraid be focused be determined be

hopeful be empowered empower yourselveswith a good education then get out there

and use that education to build acountry worthy of your boundless promise

lead by example with hope never fearour greatness has never ever come from

sitting back and feeling entitled towhat we have it's never come from folkswho climb the ladder of success or who

happened to be born near the top andthen pull the ladder up after themselves

know our greatness has always come frompeople who expect nothing and take

nothing for granted folks who work hardfor what they have been reached back and

help others after them success isn'tabout how your life looks to others it's

about how it feels to you we realizethat being successful isn't about being

impressiveit's about being inspired

and and that's what it means to be yourtrue self it means looking inside

yourself and being honest about what youtruly enjoy doing because graduates I

can promise you that you will never behappy plotting through someone else's

idea of success success is onlymeaningful and enjoyable if it feels

like your own

you should never view your challenges asa disadvantage

instead it's important for you tounderstand that your experience facing

and overcoming adversity is actually oneof your biggest advantages and I know

that because I've seen it myself notjust as a student working my way through

school but years later when I mean afterI came before I came to the White House

and I work as a Dean at a college inthat role I encountered students who had

every advantage their parents paid theirfull tuition they lived in beautiful

campus and dorms they had every materialpossession a college kid could want cars

computers spending money but when someof them got their first bad great they

just fell apart they lost it becausethey were ill-equipped to handle their

first encounter with disappointment orfalling short

but graduates as you all know life willput many obstacles in your path that are

far worse than a bad grade you'll you'llhave unreasonable bosses and difficult

clients and patients you'll experienceillnesses and losses crises and setbacks

that will come out of nowhere and knockyou off your feet but unlike so many

other young people you have alreadydeveloped the resilience and the

maturity that you need to pick yourselfup and dust yourself off and keep moving

through the pain keep moving forward

you may be feeling some real anxietyabout venturing out into the world

beyond these walls and I'm not gonna lieto you for many of you this is going to

be a pretty big transition in fact Ithink dr. Martin Luther King describedit well in his commencement address than

when he declared quote today you bidfarewell to the safe security of the

academic environment you prepare tocontinue your journey on the clamorous

highways of life we all feel at times alittle bit lost and we all have some

kind of emptiness that we're searchingto fill and often it is only through

serving others that we find what's beenmissing in our own lives and like so

many of you through service I was ableto find what I needed and carve a path

for my life that truly felt like my ownand the truth is those seminars where

you explored new ideas those late-nightconversations where you challenged each

other and learn from each other afterall of that you might find yourself a

little dismayed by the clamor outsidethese walls the name-calling the

negative ads the folks yelling at eachother on TV the power of inventing the

future I just want to pause for a momenton

word invent because the Turk raise isn'tsucceed in the future it's not planned

for the future or do the best you can inthe future its invent the future and

with those three words comes a simplemessage a call to chart your own course

and live life on your own terms andthat's a lesson that I first learned

back when I was a teenager and some ofyou may have grown up like I did in

neighborhoods where kids had very few ofthem had the chance to go to college

where being teased for doing well inschool was just a fact of life were

well-meaning but misguided folksquestioned whether a girl with my

background could get into the kinds ofcolleges I dreamed of attending after

being surrounded by people who are sodedicated to serving others and making

the world a better place you might feela little discouraged by the polarization

and gridlock that too oftencharacterized our politics and civic

life and in the face of all that clamoryou might have an overwhelming instinct

to just run the other way as fast as youcan

you might be tempted to find a communityof like-minded folks and work with them

on causes you care about and just tuneout all of the noise I worked hard and I

did my best to tune out those voices ofdoubt including the ones inside my own

head and eventually I was accepted toPrinceton and I got that education that

my dad had always dreamed of but thetruth is graduates there will always be

folks who make assumptions about youbased on superficial things like where

you're from or what you're wearing orhow you look there will always be folks

who judge you based on just one thingthat you say or do folks who define youbased on one isolated incident I want to

urge you to do just the opposite today Iwant to suggest that if you truly wish

to carry on the Oberlin legacy ofservice and social justice then you need

to run to and not away from the noisetoday I want to urge you to actively

seek out the most contentious polarizedgridlocked places you can find because

so often throughout our history thosehave been the places where progress

really happens the places where mindsare changed lives transformed in the endpeople can only define you if you let

them in the end it's up to each of us todefine ourselves it's up to each of us

to invent our own future with thechoices we make and the actions we take

to succumb to feelings of despair andanger only means that in the end we lose

those feelings are not an excuse to justthrow up our hands and give up not anexcuse they are not an excuse to lose

hope but here's the thing our historyprovides us with a better story a better

blueprint for how we can win it teachesus that when we pull ourselves out of

the lowest emotional depths and wechannel our frustrations into studying

and organizing and banding together thenwe can build ourselves and our

communities up we can take on those deeprooted problems and together together we

can overcome anything that stands in ourway nothing and I mean nothing is going

to stop you from fulfilling your dreamsand you deserve every last one of the

successes that I know you will have butI also want to be very clear that with

those successes comes a set ofobligations to share the lessons you'velearned here at this school the

obligation to use the opportunitiesyou've had to help others that means

raising your hand when you get a seat inthat board meeting and asking the

question well whose voices aren't beingheard here what ideas are we missing it

means adding your voice to our nationalconversation speaking out for our most

cherished values of Liberty opportunityinclusion and respect the values that

you've been living here at this schoolit means reaching back to help young

people who've been left out and leftbehind helping them prepare for college

helping them pay for college so I wantyou all to go out there be great build

great lives for yourself enjoy theliberties that you have in this great

country pursue your own version ofhappiness and please please always

always do your part to help others dothe same









