J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time. It’s very touching, humble, and deep — she has no desire to prove her brilliance as I’ve seen with other speakers. Because of this she can connect with everybody, not just the scientific or philosophical thinkers, and yet her eloquence and insights let you know that she’s a very intelligent and caring woman; she’s a leader in the greatest respects.
I’ve taken the liberty to extract a few of her quotations and add them below as highlights. You can read the full transcript at HarvardMagazine.com.
Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me. [...] There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.— J.K. Rowling
Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.— J.K. Rowling
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.— J.K. Rowling
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.— J.K. Rowling
The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet.— J.K. Rowling
Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.— J.K. Rowling
What are your thoughts on her speech? Were there any parts that you identify with? Let’s here your comments below.
