- Hello, my name is Evan Lim
and I am proud to be among you
in the Colorado School
of Mines, class of 2020.
I was challenged by one
of my professors CPW
to create a memorable commencement address
so I decided to take a lawn
chair out to the horse pen
to write this speech.
The next thing I know,
one horse has his head over my shoulder
trying to read, eat my computer
and the other is biting the arm rest
and picking the chair up
with me in it.
If this address isn't memorable
for all of you it was for me
because I wrote it while
being bullied by my horses.
I wanna take a moment to apologize
to our amazing faculty,
staff, alumni and parents.
Sorry for all the stress
that we caused you
with all of our shenanigans.
While I still haven't quite
forgiven some of the exams
I'd like to thank you
for all the hard work
you put into preparing us for the future.
Thank you for working just
as hard as us if not harder
to create a great environment.
If any of you know Dr. Kemp
I think she sleeps even
less than her students
because I get CS of Mines emails
at one and two in the morning.
Our faculty go above and beyond
to ensure our education
upholds the Mines' reputation
that is so important when
it comes to finding a job.
On behalf of the class of 2020 thank you.
This is the part where I'm supposed to say
well class of 2020 we made it,
instead I'm going to say class of 2020
welcome to the end of the world.
Now this is not one of
professor Peterson's conspiracy theories
but in all seriousness
welcome to the tediousness
and monotony of adult life.
David Foster Wallace said
in his video (This Is Water)
that this is where the
real meaning of day in
and day out is discovered.
Is anyone else scared of
what comes after graduation?
Sometimes I'm terrified of
getting lost in the humdrum
of the nine to five schedule.
Life after college can seem
so gray, lonely and tiresome.
Many of us are met with the
dilemma of working so hard
to make it to this point
but now we are standing on
the precipice of uncertainty.
Now we have a choice,
and that choice is called perspective.
Perspective is powerful because
you have the strength to
change your own reality
and thus the power to change
our collective realities.
When we step from this room,
each of us will walk into a
world created, manipulated
and contributed to by all of us.
This is why the most important
thing that we will take
from our college experience
is the network of people,
friends, colleagues, professors.
Incoming students to hardened warriors
we are all in this reality together
and it is our responsibility
to keep and grow our network.
I know it can be hard for
us at Mines to be social,
but otherwise you just spent
150,000 dollars or more
on a sheet of silver foil.
Day in and day out may be our reality,
but the tediousness of life
is completely up to our perspective.
We live in the world that we make
and if we are creative,
innovative and engage
in the human experience
life will be interesting.
Together we can turn
this bland, humdrum, gray
and deteriorating world into
something grand and green,
spectacular and interesting.
I'm sure I'm about to get kicked out
for saying this to a room
full of high achievers,
but it is dangerous to
focus too tightly on goals,
achievement and status.
They are all endpoints and
that is why I am sorry to say
that you are not actually
graduating today, sorry.
I've always been confused about
why we have two commencement ceremonies,
one when we started as
freshmen and this one.
Commencement means the
start, so today class of 2020
we are not graduating as the
class who started in 2016,
we are the class of 2020,
celebrating what is to come.
This is because life is a between place,
life is in between the
death of nonexistence
and the death of going out of existence.
It is important to remember
that accomplishments
create short term happiness
but the secret to enjoying
life comes in the beauty,
friendships and journey in
between accomplishments.
I urge you all graduates of 2020
and everyone else to think about that.
It is our choice to think a certain way,
we can have the perspective
to create a better reality
or believe that it's the end of the world.
Obviously the world is still here
and we have work to do.
Class of 2020, welcome
to your new reality.
Thank you
(up beat music)
