Broder urged the graduates to resist the pressure to 'get on the fast track to success right this minute to meet your family's expectations or to start repaying your student loans.' Instead, he told them to indulge their instincts and try things that simply felt right — even if others disapproved. He illustrated this with his own career. 'It was greatly to the dismay of my parents that I tried newspaper work when I got out of the army 35 years ago. That is not what they had in mind for me at all. I told them and I really believed that it was something I needed to get out of my system before I grew up and looked for a real job.' The punchline was both self-deprecating and deeply encouraging: 'Well, it's taken longer than I expected and I've loved every wasted minute of it.'