To the graduates of the class of 2020--and to their parents, family, friends, and
faculty--thank you for this opportunity to help celebrate your commencement.
Sorry I wasn’t able to get a haircut… but this event is a big deal and I did dress
up—this is the first time I’ve worn a jacket in months!
My work is in travel.
I haven't done many commencement addresses because for the last 30 years I’ve
generally been in Europe during May and June.
But this year is different in so many ways and I’m here at home – just like you.
These days, my mantra is: this COVID-19 crisis may upend our travel plans…
but it can’t stop our travel dreams.
And for you, 2020 graduates, it can be the same:
this crisis may upend some of your plans… but it can’t stop your dreams.
It may seem strange for a traveler to give advice during a global quarantine.
Normally my message would be simply to travel…to get out--to experience first-hand
the people and the cultures of our world.
And I still believe that's great advice…even if those travel adventures
may have to wait a little while.
Let me share a few favorite stories from spending a third of my adult life
living out of a suitcase overseas.
One of the best things about being a traveler is the people you meet
and the stories they share.
Then, long after those stories happen, these encounters remain a part of you…
they change you forever.
Guiding a tour group through eastern Turkey, I once dropped in on a craftsman.
He was famous for his wood carving.
Every village in his region wanted a prayer niche carved by this man.
We gathered around his bench to watch him work.
He was proudly showing off for his visitors from so far away.
Then, suddenly, he stopped, he held his chisel high into the sky, and he declared,
“A man and his chisel — the greatest factory on earth!”
When I asked him if I could buy a piece of his art, he said, “For a man my age to know
that my work will go back to the United States and be appreciated, that’s payment
enough. Please take this carving home with you as a gift, and remember me.”
I did, and decades later I still cherish that memory and how, in his world,
he defined his own success.
Your class, the class of 2020, represents countless success stories just waiting to
happen — potential heroes in a needy world…chisels glistening in the sky.
And starting right after your graduation: it’s on!
But, in the interest of being a little realistic, let's talk about
some of the challenges that await.
As graduates eager to get traction, you'll likely be determined to improve things
wherever you wind up.
But be prepared: Institutions are threatened by those who challenge the
status quo — even though, very often, that’s exactly what they need the most.
Traveling in Italy, I visited Assisi and learned that, 800 years ago,
the monks who first followed St. Francis worked within,
but at the same time against, the Roman Catholic Church.
These early Franciscans may have antagonized the pope.
But the Church — so in need of reform — was actually made stronger by those
truth-embracing, trouble-making Franciscans.
Later, traveling in Central America, I met the modern-day equivalents of those early
monks —caring people fighting courageously for peace and justice.
While many of these priests and nuns were actually excommunicated for their political
activism, they continued their work without missing a beat, believing, as one priest
explained to me, “Part of our vow of obedience to the Church
is disobedience to the Church.”
Like those first Franciscans in Italy, and like those modern-day Jesuits in
Central America, it’s your challenge—and, I hope, your calling--to speak boldly
against regressive powers within our society for the good of our society.
I was in Berlin about 20 years ago—about when many of you were born.
After a tumultuous century of war and division, the Cold War was over, and East
Germany and West Germany were now re-united as one country: Germany.
Its historic old Reichstag (or parliament building)--which was destroyed in WWII--
had been a bombed out shell standing on the no-mans’ land between East Germany
and West Germany for decades.
Now, with Germany re-united, that Reichstag was totally rebuilt...and capped with a
glorious new glass dome.
And I happened to be there on opening day.
It was one of those rare and exciting moments as a traveler when you actually get
to be an eyewitness to history as it unfolds.
And what powerful architectural symbolism!
It was designed for German citizens to walk the spiral ramp all the way to the top and
literally look down, over the shoulders of their legislators,
and keep an eye on those in power.
I’ll never forget being on the top of that new dome on that exciting day, surrounded
by teary-eyed Germans.
Now, any time you’re surrounded by teary-eyed Germans...
something exceptional’s going on.
For those people, the opening of this grand new capitol building was the symbolic
closing of a difficult chapter in their history: No more division.
No more fascism.
No more communism.
They were entering a new century with a new capitol…
united and filled with hope and optimism.
It was a thrill to be there.
I was caught up in it.
But then, looking around, I realized that many of the other American tourists up there
didn’t have a clue about the excitement and the importance of this moment.
This was a triumph of democracy… of a people retaking their freedom
and then making sure they didn’t lose it again.
And for the Americans visiting…they just didn’t get it…they were preoccupied with
trivialities — forgotten camera batteries, needing a Coke, the lack of
air-conditioning and so on. And it saddened me…frustrated me…
it even angered me.
I thought, “I don’t want to be part of a dumbed-down society.”
I want to be part of an engaged society.
I made a promise to myself then and there that, in my own little world as a travel
writer, I’d expect my readers, my viewers, and my travelers to be engaged…to be smart.
We live in a time when science is questioned… a time when facts are considered
optional…when the liberal arts are defunded and the push is to make us
all just mindless producer/consumers.
I believe there are powerful forces in our society that drive this—
powerful forces that would find it convenient, more profitable
if we were all just dumbed down… disengaged.
For them, the less informed and more
complacent we are, the better.
Class of 2020…refuse to be dumbed down.
Considering the unprecedented challenges facing our nation today, a smart electorate
and an engaged public—that includes you--is more important than ever.
In this last year, I’ve traveled to many countries that we’d consider poor.
And I’ve noticed an irony: While we Americans — the richest people around —
tend to live with a mindset of scarcity, the poorest people I’ve met—
people from Guatemala to Sri Lanka to Morocco-- live with a mindset of abundance.
These are the people who give me the warmest and most generous welcome.
In Guatemala, where people work all day for $5, chicken and Coke are luxuries
deserved or reserved for special occasions.
Imagine…chicken and Coke.
Yet Guatemalans celebrate life. They live it with a mindset of abundance.
South of the border, it’s “me casa, su casa” – my house is your house.
And my memories of Guatemala are filled with chicken and Coke.
I know many of us face difficult times…times we could have scarcely imagined
just a few months ago.
And we’ve all suffered and sacrificed in some way.
The challenge is to face these difficulties not with a mindset of scarcity--
but with a mindset of abundance.
Rather than fixate on what you don't have, count your blessings.
America is a wonderful country.
I’m proud to be an American and I’d live nowhere else.
But that same prosperity, power, and pride that defines us
can have an unfortunate side-effect: ethnocentrism.
That’s thinking the world is a pyramid with us on top and everyone else trying to
figure it out. Americans are disinclined to look beyond our borders.
But if you want to help make our world a better place,
you need to get to know it first.
We Americans make up just four percent of this planet.
There's no doubt that we’re a beautiful four percent of the world's population,
with plenty to be proud of.
But that doesn't mean that the other 96 percent is second-rate!
All of us have a choice of how to see our country: With a feel-good ethnocentrism,
or with a more honest and broader worldview.
Travel has inspired me to help make our world a better place
and it’s given me ideas for how to do it.
I believe that to be a true patriot, it's our duty to challenge America to do better.
Some people may call it "America-bashing," but I’d say having high standards for our
country is "America-loving." You can love America in this same way:
Your passion for truth and justice can strengthen the fabric of our democracy.
The power your education provides can contribute to our nation’s security.
Your commitment to freedom can be an inspiring example of good citizenship.
And the values you embrace—by how you live, how you consume, and how you vote--
can help shape the values of our society as a whole.
One more travel tale: In the middle of Copenhagen, you'll find an unlikely hippie
community. It's called Christiania.
Surrounded by all that Danish perfection and orderliness, it’s a funky enclave of
squatters and rebels who run their own little idealistic society.
Somehow, despite attempts by developers and the city government to shut it down,
Christiania has survived for nearly 40 years.
On my last visit, as I entered Christiania, I saw a huge mural that reads, “Only dead
fish follow the current.” That mural made me think about what we call “success”.
You've invested many years of hard work in your education in order to be successful.
Maybe now's a good time to pause...
and to think about what "success" really means.
It’s true, I’ve been financially successful in my business.
And part of success is a practical matter: Working hard to earn a good paycheck and
providing for your family.
And that in itself can be wonderfully fulfilling.
But I challenge you to think
more broadly about success and
to define it for yourself.
Remember the woodcarver with the chisel I met in Turkey who was so proud of his art?
There’s a person who’s defined his own success.
Remember the monks with St. Francis
and the Jesuits in El Salvador…they spoke truth to power and made the world
a better place…that was success.
You can embrace life with a determination to be engaged rather than dumbed down,
to live life with a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity, and to make choices
that benefit society as a whole rather than just you as an individual.
These are all stories of success.
As I speak to you today, I hope for your success.
I hope that you’ll be like those who’ve inspired me in my travels:
that you’ll be authentic; that you’ll have the courage to speak truth to power;
that you’ll embrace life with both abandon and with a mindset of abundance.
And if you do this… you will change the world.
This crisis is a wake-up call and it can teach us a lot: There’s more to life than
material productivity. We need our neighbors and our neighbors need us.
Our world is fragile and interconnected…
And, the future is in your hands… yes, you... the class of 2020.
In an American society, where so many are selling their souls to conform,
you can be a dead fish, or you can swim freely — even against the current.
Now, it’s your turn!
Congratulations and best wishes as you embrace both the challenges
and the delights that lie ahead.
To each one of you… Bon voyage!
And Keep on Travelin’!