What If You Were Enough?

A question for graduates, and for us all

One of my most favorite aspects of academia is ritual, particularly those rituals that mark the moment where young people cross from one part of their journey to the next. No matter how many commencements I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in, it just never gets old (or fails to get me choked up).

Well, y’all, something incredible happened to me over the weekend. The University of Puget Sound invited me to receive an Honorary Degree (“Doctor of Letters”) and to give the commencement address. And outside of the flight delay that had Dan and me arriving in Seattle past 2am on Friday night, it was a perfect weekend that meant a whole lot. 

I’m dropping the text of my speech below if you want to give it a read. You can also watch me receive the Honorary Degree and deliver the address over on YouTube (It starts at about 52:40). Here are some of my own highlights.

1) Reading 'Doctor of Humane Letters' gave me chills 2) Getting ready for the procession 3) Honored to share this moment with my fellow awardee Liz Begert Dunbar 4) My dear friend David Watson, a UPS Trustee 5) Dan helps me robe up 6) Thanks to you, my love for being by my side

What If You Were Enough?
By Julie Lythcott-Haims
University of Puget Sound Commencement
May 5, 2024

It’s many months ago. The President’s Office invites me to receive an honorary degree and give this speech. Of course I accept. It’s an incredible honor, and I know my mom will be proud of me, which for some reason, even at my age, still matters.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. The President’s office asks me for the title of my speech. But I don’t usually give my speeches titles. And to be honest, I haven’t even started writing it. So how am I supposed to know what its eventual name will be? “We need the title of your speech,” they tell me. “And if it’s going to be listed in the Commencement program, we need it NOW.”

Clearly the eleventh hour has arrived. So, I do what any respectable UPS student would do, and consult ChatGPT. “Give me the title for a speech by Julie Lythcott-Haims that will inspire the graduates at the University of Puget sound commencement.” Within a nanosecond the answer comes: What if you were enough? I like where this Artificial Intelligence is going with this, I think to myself. And then I think, “Do go on.” And so I do.

“Write a speech,” I ask ChatGPT, “by Julie Lythcott-Haims, to be given at the University of Puget Sound Commencement called What If You Were Enough.”

Again, within a nanosecond or two ChatGPT begins to respond. It knows that I always speak for like an hour, and in a matter of minutes it has written me this beautiful long talk. Then I read the fine print and see that a UPS commencement speech should be more like 10-12 minutes. What! Ten minutes when I’m accustomed to going on for hours!? I know some of you faculty can relate.

Ok so I’m kidding about the AI. I’m a writer. And what I’m about to share is mine, and mine alone. And it is not my usual hour-long talk. Yes, I know you are relieved. Yes, I am … not… offended.

Now that I’ve spent all this time dilly dallying, I’ll try to get to the point. Which is a bit of advice to accompany you graduates as you make your way away from this special place. But first, I’m going to tell you what I think I know about you, because you should be wary of advice from someone if they don’t seem to know or even want to know anything about you. Which I guess turns out to be my first piece of advice.

Here's what I think I know. For starters, at least for you undergrads, thanks to COVID you were denied a proper high school graduation, so today is your first real one, complete with a real live speaker who is attempting not to let you down. No pressure. And, thanks to COVID, once you got here to UPS, only one student was allowed to be in the communal bathrooms at once, so you honed the very necessary yet awkward skill of listening really well to determine if someone was, you know, in there. Oh, and let’s not forget the dreaded spit test. “Come to the rotunda of the SUB and spit in tubes as you sit six feet away from each other” they said. And you tried really earnestly to preserve each others’ dignity by not looking at each other as your respective salivas (salivi?) fell into the tube. But I’m told your years here weren’t just about spitting and listening for bathroom sounds. No no, you were able to fashion a bit of fun for yourselves by stealing exit signs. From dorms. I guess the doors are really hard to find here?

Beyond these strange COVID times, I know that UPS students are passionate. Determined. And the liberal arts “impact” means you’re all involved in a multitude of things. For which you’re called “and” students. Because you’re this AND this AND this AND this. I also know there’s a lot of grit here. Likely owing to the important influence of Tacoma. And, I’m not gonna lie, you’re said to be quirky. Some might even say you’re weird. I mean I wouldn’t say you’re weird. But you know, some would say that about you, and that's okay.

Because who cares what other people think, when you know you are enough?

Let’s go there.

The second thing to know is that the only thing you can truly be in charge of is yourself. You cannot change another person. Yes, they might in fact be changed as a result of your actions and interactions with them. But we cannot go out in life expecting to change others – like if I could just get them to change then everything would be fine. That’s a fool’s errand. But the tremendous good news I have for you, is that you CAN be in charge of yourself, your actions, reactions, your very sense of self, if you work really hard at it. And it is so worth it. I know this because I have traveled that journey.

Let me let you in on that. I stand before you as a 56-year-old self-loving Black woman but I didn’t always feel that I was enough. You see, when I was your age, based on where I was raised and how I was treated, I was in a desperate free fall trying not to be the stereotype people had of Black people but also trying to figure out whether I belonged in Blackness anyway being biracial and raised in white towns. I flailed about searching for external approval because I did not love and accept myself as I was. I do not know who I was. Because society, strangers, teachers, even friends had signaled one too many times that I was problematic for the sheer fact of my existence, and slowly, like ingesting droplets of poison over time, I came to believe that they were the arbiter of the truth of me.

Through my teens, twenties, and thirties I went like this. Then finally, working at a university, working to help young people figure themselves out and become who they wanted to be, unfettered by the opinions and biases of others, I couldn’t help but yearn for the same for me. So I worked with someone I trusted and did the deep work. Developed a mindfulness practice to know my fears and triggers. And finally by shedding the ugliest snot and tears, I came to name the shame of what I’d been made to think of me. And having the guts to name it all first to myself and in the presence of a trusted coach, I tamed it within me. When the tumult settled what I felt finally was the relief and certainty of self love. Having searched for belonging my whole life I finally know that it starts within. That is my third piece of advice. And when you like yourself and accept yourself, well you belong to yourself, and then, here's the magic, you belong everywhere, because you take that self-loving self with you wherever you go, and it forms a protective barrier between you and whatever might come your way.

And this self-love brings a bonus. There are people you don’t know and can’t even contemplate who need to see you loving yourself exactly as you are. You being unabashedly self-lovingly you, carrying the identities you do, in the presence of someone else who is similar to you can be life affirming for them. Even life-saving. If as I shared my identity struggle, there was a stirring within you, an inner voice that said she’s talking about me, she’s talking to me, then well, I was. And if this is you, I encourage you, too, to do the work.

Beyond this innermost thing called identity, there are other ways in which we might be judged, so now let’s go there. Some of us are perfectionists. We feel we’re only good enough when we’re performing well, and, by extension we feel we matter less or dare I say we feel worth less when our performance is faltering or we’re outright effing up. Stop that. Piece of advice number four: You are not a better person when your performance is better, and you are not a lesser person when you falter. You matter because you breathe. And you will screw up countless times in life, as I have, and you will learn from it and keep going.

And let’s talk about what we choose to study and do for work. Some of us are in pursuit of that “right track” because well-meaning others tell us they love us and only want us to be happy, and if we just pursue this major, this grad school program, this work, this identity, then we’ll be happy and they'll love us. And who doesn't want to be happy and loved?

But if you’ve been in hot pursuit of someone else’s idea of the so-called right track, stop that. Piece of advice number five: There is no right track. There is only the particular path that is right for you, right now. And if you are on the so-called right track but it’s not the right track for you, even if you’re good at it, paradoxically, you will feel like a robot going through the motions in your own life. So you seniors and grad students, if you know in your bones that the track you’re on is not the right track for you, you should get off it. Okay but wait now your parents are freaking out. Okay so maybe try that “right track” for a few years but, THEN, should you feel deeply that it’s not the right track for you, get off it. Figure out the Venn diagram of what you’re good at, AND what you love. Ask yourself what you would do, who you would be, if they loved you no matter what. Ask yourself what you would do if you loved yourself enough not to worry about what others think?

You want to be successful. Admired. And you think it’s about your career. And money. Yet when I ask about the people you admire here at UPS, I learn, for example, about a cashier named Yong Mi who goes out of her way to know people’s names and say a kind word as she’s ringing up your food. I hear of a student programming staff member named Serni who will always have your back when your plans go awry. I hear about a faculty member who simply treats you like you belong here and who is so humble that I’m sure she doesn’t want me to mention her name. But, we see you Nancy. 

You see, no matter what job you have in life, what position, what stature, these folks and countless others here at UPS have taught us that how you treat people is the true measure of your worth as a human. That’s piece of advice number six. So if you insist on being a perfectionist, I’m going to say fine – get to work on cultivating a perfect character. You are one person among eight billion, no less important, no more important than any other. We are globally connected yet we suffer from an epidemic of loneliness. Research shows that a smile at a stranger makes them feel seen. That thanking the clerk for being there and even when they say “it’s just my job,” smiling and saying, “Thank you for doing your job, cuz it’s making my day easier that you are here” shows them they matter. Can you do the work on your own rough edges so you don’t trample upon others who like you are simply trying to feel like they are enough? Can you engage in the exquisitely human act of truly seeing others, holding space for their stories, fears, pain and dreams?

I know you are enough. For yourself. For others. For this broken world.

Go be you. I’m rooting for you. I'm rooting for us all.

___

Hope you liked it! That said, it is challenging to adequately convey the tone and tenor of a speech on the written page, so if you want to hear what it sounded like, you can watch it here (it starts at about 52:40).

Comment with your thoughts, and if you feel like it, share what YOU would tell graduates if you had the chance.

Oh and this all came about because many of the UPS trustees read my memoir, Real American, when the school was grappling with difficult issues related to race. For my words to be of use to others in this way is just GAH!!!! And now I completely lack the words to convey how profoundly honored I am for this recognition. Thank you, University of Puget Sound!

xo

🤗 Here’s a hug for anyone with a graduate this commencement season.

🏡You've been in Julie's Pod, an online community of over 12,000 people who want to open up about our lives, be vulnerable, learn and grow, and in so doing help others learn and grow.

☎️ For those who are not comfortable commenting publicly, call my anonymous hotline 1-877-HI-JULIE where you can leave a voicemail to let me know what's going on in your life, or to ask a question you’d like to see answered in my “Dear Julie” advice column.

⏩ If you know someone who could benefit from this piece, please share it with them:

➕ A paid subscription gets you access to my “Dear Julie” advice column, a weekly coffee hangout on Zoom, a monthly list of recommended things, and Julie’s Pod stickers for your laptop, water bottle, or phone. Upgrade to paid below.

✍ If you left a comment on any post before today, thank you. I've probably responded. Typically, comments are quite thoughtful, so please feel welcome to join the conversation whenever you feel like it.

© 2024 Love Over Time LLC All Rights Reserved