It was graduation day at the Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the English teacher David McCullough Jr started his speech with these words: “None of you is special. You are not special. You are not exceptional.” The audience, consisting of 300 plus students in their ceremonial gowns and their parents, was shocked and baffled. There were soft murmurs and whispers. However, as the teacher went on with his speech, the initial shock gradually wore off.
When the speech was uploaded online, it went viral. Most of the responses and comments were appreciative of the speech, and there were exceptions as well.
When he said “None of you is special”, I assume the teacher meant that they needed to be unique and in order to be exceptional and they need to work for it.
Like most students, you will also consider that you have achieved something when you complete your schooling or college education. You heave a big sigh of relief. You think that you have crossed a major hurdle and thereafter life for you will be a smooth ride.
However, what you do not realise is that you have just scaled one block and several more are waiting in your uncharted pathway.
I might add here that it is your elders who condition you into this kind of mental makeup. It is they who tell you that if you put in all your effort for your school final examinations, once you get into a college life will be easy. Parents say this to motivate you to do well. It is for you to realise that colleges are extensions of schools.
You are expected to put in the same kind of hard work, if not more, in colleges to excel.
Life is more of a rat race in the modern days. Considering the number of graduates — engineering as well as from other streams — passing out of our colleges every year, you need to be special. Otherwise, you will be lost in the sea of faces.
All those who clear their exams will get a degree and there might be a difference in the grades. Even then several students would have got the same grade. Unless you distinguish yourself from this crowd, you will not realise your career ambitions — be it getting a job or doing a course overseas. You need to prove that you have a well-rounded personality.
Demonstrate that you are a person who can communicate well, who can lead or work in a team, who can take up a challenging job and who can complete tasks within the time limit, in other words you need to show that you are an exceptional person.
You should know how to use your education to not only prepare you to be, for instance, an excellent engineer, but also equip yourself with all the life skills that are essential to be a humane human being. It is up to you to make use of this education to bring about a change in society.
However, you should realise that it is of no use doing things for the sake of doing them. You need to believe and involve yourself in what you do. Only then, can you be a special person.
I would like to once again borrow the words of McCullough Jr, “Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.”