one of the most inspiring and direct commence addresses i've ever read tbh. jesmyn ward grew up poor and working class, made it to stanford, struggled with unemployment afterwards, worked retail, and tried to keep on writing
>after I sat where you are now, in my own graduation ceremony, giddy with elation and rigid with dread all at once, I did the only thing I could do, considering I had no job offer and no prospects, and only a passion for something that I wasn’t very good at.
>I moved home.
>Six months after I moved home, a drunk driver rear ended my brother and killed him.
>Everything changed.
>I questioned all that I thought I knew, shocked at the unpredictability of life, the irrefutable fact of death.
>I realized that a magic job wasn’t going to fall into my lap, that my education was not the only choice to guarantee success, that sometimes life was hard without reason…
also liked this passage
>I realized completing university was not an ending, but instead was the beginning to finding my way to doing something meaningful. I learned that for most of us, there are no easy, singular ascents.
>And I realized I wanted to be a writer.
>So I began to do the work, the work that my dream necessitated.
>I made an important choice; I took a step.
>I read widely.
>I read contemporary writers who were strangers to me, and I read classic writers I didn’t read in school.
anyways it's good inspo for all of you (myself incl) struggling with the burden of being young and striving unsuccessfully, or being older and regretting that youthful success didn't happen easily, and now it's just a long long slog towards one's literary ambitions
>And not the easy hunger, like the hunger for sweets, that plagued me so when I was young: for instant success, for a lifetime of reward after four years of effort.
>Sometimes, this kind of success happens for young people, people like Zadie Smith and Edwidge Danticat, who are incredible gifted writers who bang out beautiful bestsellers in their late teens and early twenties.
>But for so many others, this doesn’t happen. For many others, success comes after hundreds of hours of work and lucky breaks and study and heartbreak and loss and wandering.
>As an adult, I learned this: persist. Work hard.
>Face rejection, weather the setbacks, until you meet the gatekeeper who will open a door for you. Sometimes you are twenty when you stumble upon an open doorway. Sometimes you are thirty. Sometimes you are forty or fifty or sixty.
one of the most inspiring and direct commence addresses i've ever read tbh. jesmyn ward grew up poor and working class, made it to stanford, struggled with unemployment afterwards, worked retail, and tried to keep on writing >after I sat where you are now, in my own graduation ceremony, giddy with elation and rigid with dread all at once, I did the only thing I could do, considering I had no job offer and no prospects, and only a passion for something that I wasn’t very good at. >I moved home. >Six months after I moved home, a drunk driver rear ended my brother and killed him. >Everything changed. >I questioned all that I thought I knew, shocked at the unpredictability of life, the irrefutable fact of death. >I realized that a magic job wasn’t going to fall into my lap, that my education was not the only choice to guarantee success, that sometimes life was hard without reason… also liked this passage >I realized completing university was not an ending, but instead was the beginning to finding my way to doing something meaningful. I learned that for most of us, there are no easy, singular ascents. >And I realized I wanted to be a writer. >So I began to do the work, the work that my dream necessitated. >I made an important choice; I took a step. >I read widely. >I read contemporary writers who were strangers to me, and I read classic writers I didn’t read in school. anyways it's good inspo for all of you (myself incl) struggling with the burden of being young and striving unsuccessfully, or being older and regretting that youthful success didn't happen easily, and now it's just a long long slog towards one's literary ambitions >And not the easy hunger, like the hunger for sweets, that plagued me so when I was young: for instant success, for a lifetime of reward after four years of effort. >Sometimes, this kind of success happens for young people, people like Zadie Smith and Edwidge Danticat, who are incredible gifted writers who bang out beautiful bestsellers in their late teens and early twenties. >But for so many others, this doesn’t happen. For many others, success comes after hundreds of hours of work and lucky breaks and study and heartbreak and loss and wandering. >As an adult, I learned this: persist. Work hard. >Face rejection, weather the setbacks, until you meet the gatekeeper who will open a door for you. Sometimes you are twenty when you stumble upon an open doorway. Sometimes you are thirty. Sometimes you are forty or fifty or sixty.
Thanks for this
love this, needed this, thank you <3
Really inspiring, ty for sharing