A Blessing for the Ones Walking Out the Door

Every spring I find myself watching the graduates, the ones in the front rows, the ones in the photos friends post, the ones at the cafe two tables over with their families, half proud and half terrified. I keep wanting to say something to them, and most of what I want to say sounds like advice, and most of the advice I had at their age turned out to be wrong.

So this year, instead of advice, a blessing.

For the ones stepping out with a degree in hand
and a head full of answers that arrived a little too easily,
may you be spared the temptation
to outsource the questions that are actually yours,
and given the patience to sit with them long enough to hear yourself answer.

For the blank pages you will face,
the first email, the first pitch, the first hard conversation,
may you not be so quick to fill them
with someone else’s words, or a machine’s,
that you forget what your own thinking sounds like.

For the slow afternoons that feel unproductive,
the rough drafts no one will ever see,
the long walks where you arrive home with nothing to show,
may you not mistake them for wasted time.
That is your mind doing the work no one else can do for you.

For the moments you will be handed a polished answer
and asked to nod along,
may you have the small, stubborn courage
to ask the second question.
And the third.

For the writing that sounds a little crooked,
the sentence that fights you on the way out,
the typo you almost fixed before deciding it was you,
may you learn early that the rough edges are how anyone finds you in the noise.

For the days you feel slower than everyone around you,
the meetings where you’re still forming the thought
while someone else has already produced a deck,
may you not confuse their speed for understanding,
or your slowness for falling behind.

And for what you carry with you,
the questions that don’t yet have shape,
the convictions you are still testing,
the version of yourself that has not arrived,
may you find a few people who can hold them with you,
and a quiet room, now and then,
where you can hear your own mind
before anything else gets to speak.

A note from me: I have spent the last two years interviewing CEOs, neuroscientists, and parents about what’s happening to our thinking right now. The graduates I worry about least are not the ones with the highest GPA or the cleanest resume, they are the ones who still know how to be bored, how to sit with a hard question, how to write a bad first draft. If that’s you, you are going to be fine. Better than fine.

With love,
Erica