Many of us will be attending graduation ceremonies this spring. I love to listen to inspiring commencement speeches and found this one by JK Rowling (Part 1) from 2008 at Harvard. She focuses on failure and imagination, her own formula for success at finally writing the novels that she dreamed of doing when she graduated from college.
One of the best lines in her speech, is "There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction." (This is my gift to my mom for Mother's Day!) So you have a choice when you feel like you have "failed." You can blame, regret, and go to a place of shame, or you can look "failure" in the eye and thank it. "You will never truly know yourself or the strength of your relationships until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won and it has been worth more than any qualification I have won." (Part 2) Facing your own fear of failure or feeling that you have failed will lead you into the lion's den, where you will discover your courage, imagination and deepest values.
Rowling goes to the heart of the matter when she tells us that imagination is not only the source of all invention, but that it enables us to empathize with others whose experiences we have never shared.
Quoting Plutarch, she offers, "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves... We have the power to imagine better." (Part 3)
She urges all of us to move from "failure" through imagination into compassion for others, and to use our voices for others, especially those who have no voice, who are powerless, and who have less than we have. So when you feel as if you have failed, look inside yourself for your owl, your broomstick and your wand. Then pull them out and pass your gifts on.
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