Long

You always have a goddess of wisdom in your corner. It is your education. It is your experience. It is the incredible lessons you have learned right here.

To graduate at this moment, in this time of prosperity and technological revolution, is an extraordinary gift. But it does come with strings attached.

The most radical act we can take is to make a commitment to a particular thing — to a place, to a profession, to a cause, to a community, to a person.

It is not only the bomb or the bully that should keep us up at night — it is also the garden untilled and the newcomer unwelcomed, the neighbor unhoused and the prisoner unheard.

It would be better to fail doing something challenging, something worthwhile, something I was excited to show the world, than to succeed doing something safe that wouldn't actually inspire much at all.

Surround yourself with people who trust and get you, who get your demons and believe in you — not just in what you have to offer them. Keep them close.

When the fear comes from a place of wanting to follow through with a passion, something you believe in — it's real good. If you aren't scared, be worried.

Don't just ask yourself, 'What do I want to do?' Ask yourself: 'Who do I want to be?' Because what you do will never define you. Who you are always will.

Healing our country is going to take what I call radical empathy. This is a moment to reach across divides of race, class, and politics, to try to see the world through the eyes of people very different from ourselves.

The real version of this was that I was heartbroken, and I was scared, and I had no idea if I was doing the right thing.

In the moment, you don't know how important a story is going to be. In the moment, you don't know if you're fighting because you're right, or if you're fighting because your ego, and your desire to win, and your notion of yourself as the hero in your own story are clouding your judgment.

Trust that inner voice. Because more than ever we need people to be guided by their own senses of principle — and not the whims of a culture that prizes ambition, and sensationalism, and celebrity, and vulgarity, and doing whatever it takes to win.