Graduation

Make failure your friend, but not a habit. First of all, I'm not sure survival is such a bad plan.

Even if you know you are right, you may be wrong.

Sometimes your highest pay isn't money. Wisdom is another name for humility.

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks. Dare to fail. Remember, the first person through the wall always gets bloody.

Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world. There are things you can do to lift the human spirit — things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character.

You're gonna fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the number of times you get back up.

I cannot stress enough that the answer to a lot of your life's questions is often in someone else's face. Try to find the most interesting-looking person in the room, the ## person most unlike you, and talk to them.

The gap is the thing that will drive you. For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

You leave this school as well-armed for battle as anyone is. Nobody really knows anything more than you do. Everyone is just making it up as they go along. Figure it out.

You will eventually use everything you've ever learned.

Stay obsessed. That thing you can't stop thinking about? Keep indulging it. Obsession is the better part of success. You will be great at the things that you can't not do.

Don't be afraid to be a late bloomer. Repeatedly. Remember, you have time to figure out what you want to do, who you need to be, and where you want to go. You have time to fail. You have time to try again.