George Saunders, the acclaimed fiction writer and Syracuse University professor, delivered what would become one of the most widely shared graduation speeches in modern history at Syracuse's 2013 convocation. He began by telling the story of 'Ellen,' a shy girl who joined his seventh-grade class wearing old-lady cat's-eye glasses and nervously chewing on strands of her hair. Ellen was mostly ignored and occasionally teased. Saunders was relatively nice to her — he never said an unkind word, even mildly defended her once or twice. Then one day she moved away. That was it. No tragedy, no dramatic conclusion. Yet forty-two years later, that memory still haunted him. Not because he was cruel, but because he wasn't kind enough. His regret wasn't about the terrible things he'd done, but about the kind things he'd failed to do.