Giffords described her own unlikely path — from a Fulbright Scholar who wanted to study Mennonites in Mexico, to managing a tire shop in Tucson, to running for Congress — as proof that following your passion isn't naïve idealism. She had watched 'some of the most miserable people' she'd ever met, both in and out of politics, choose careers based on salary or prestige and end up 'empty and thirsty at the end of it.' The rhetorical move — reframing passion as 'the highest order of pragmatism' — was brilliant. She wasn't telling the graduates to ignore practical considerations. She was arguing that, in the long run, doing work you love is actually the most practical strategy of all, because it's the only strategy that sustains itself through the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of a career.