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Binghamton, NY - Thank you for that kind introduction, President DeFleur. Congratulations to the Binghamton University Class of 2005! I am honored and delighted to join you, your families and friends in celebrating this remarkable milestone in your lives.
I speak on the floor of the House of Representatives on a regular basis, talk to large groups a few times a week, meet with foreign heads of state, and have even been called upon to introduce vice presidents and presidents.
But despite all of that experience, being up here in front of you is a challenge for me – not because I have any fear of speaking to a big crowd, but because it’s challenging to find the right words to convey the importance of this day in your lives and to offer some pearls of wisdom about the journey on which you are about to embark. Or maybe it’s just because it’s been 35 years since I graduated from college and my sense of what is cool went out the window with my then long hair and polyester suits.
I consulted with a few people about what I should say to you today. Everyone seemed to think I should reflect back on my college days and think about the words I wanted to hear then. But I don’t think the phrase, “The defendant is free to go,” is what you’re looking for. I’m only joking about that – well, half-joking. Let's just say that I don’t think that anyone who knew me at your age would have guessed that I’d be standing up here giving this speech.
Quite frankly, when I was a young man, I never imagined my life would take me to places far beyond my hometown of Saugerties, New York, a little town about a hundred miles northeast of here. I certainly did not imagine that my career would take me to the Congress in Washington, DC. I thought I’d probably end up spending my life working at the cement plants or factories, just as my father had and many of my friends soon would. I did get my start working at a cement plant, though. It took a long time to get from there to Congress. I had a few interesting jobs along the way, including working my way through college as a New York State Thruway toll booth collector. It wasn’t the most exciting job I ever had, but if you are an English major with a lot of reading to catch up on, I recommend the graveyard shift.
I went to college later in life than most of you – after I’d spent a few years in the Navy, got married and started a family – so maybe I had a different kind of appreciation for my college education. I know that some of you graduating today, or even your parents, are like I was in that respect: maybe you didn’t realize when you graduated from high school who or what you wanted to be, but you later learned that continuing your education was necessary to fulfill your dreams.
Thirty-five years ago, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that one would go to college right after high school, or even go to college at all. You could get a good job and live a pretty solid middle-class life with the training you got in the military, on the job or from a trade union. In today’s global economy, it’s become much harder to survive without at least a bachelor’s degree. Some of you who started college at an age later than 18 may have figured that out the hard way, as I did. For those of you who are here because your parents wanted and expected you to be, thank them – at least this once – for knowing what was best for you. Indulge them in posing for every last picture they may want to take today, because they are proud of you. Chugging those last few college beers can wait a little longer.
But I hate to be the one holding up your celebrations, so let me get to a point: you are all here today in a very different world than the one I entered into after graduation. For those of you who managed to graduate on the four-year plan, you watched the world change dramatically – devastatingly – on September 11, just a few short weeks after you came to Binghamton.
While that set in motion a chain of events that affected the economy, the military, international policy and relations, even the ease with which we travel, it is not the only defining event of your college years. In these four years, the pace of technological advances – some of them generated right here on this campus – has been staggering. Changes in the job market have been dramatic. Advances in health care in these four years may save your life some day, or the life of someone you love. These are some of the changes in the world that may inspire you and challenge you and help determine your path in life.
As your Congressman, I thought it was important to include an inspiring political quote or two for you, something that would make you want to leave this ceremony and make the world a better place. I started to go over the classics – FDR’s “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” or JFK’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” While those words of wisdom are important, they weren’t really what I was looking for.
So I kept searching for great quotes from politicians that would be appropriate to this occasion and then it hit me. I needed to look no further back in history than the 1992 vice presidential debate between then-Vice President Dan Quayle, then-Senator Al Gore, and Ross Perot’s running mate, retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale.
It was Stockdale who provides the quote that I think is most fitting for today's occasion. Most of you are to too young to remember this debate, but it was a classic. Stockdale was not a politician at all and he was thrust into this debate with two political professionals. It was a disaster. He had no idea what he was in for.
So Stockdale gets up in front of this nationally televised audience to give his opening statement and he asks, "Who am I? Why am I here?" That drew a big laugh from the audience because most of the people watching the debate were thinking the same thing: Who is this guy and why is he here?
But when you take a step back, that quote is important, veritably platonic and it is very fitting for today. Because as we gather for your graduation ceremony, there is no more important question you should be asking yourselves than "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?"
With your graduation from this fine institution, you are about to step forward into that rapidly changing world, a world full of new challenges. It's now your responsibility to determine what your place in that world will be. You are all on a quest to find out what is real and what really matters. It's a journey that will be filled with unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs. It is an experience that will hopefully lead you to many different and interesting places. It will hopefully allow you to meet extraordinary people who will broaden your horizons, as you may broaden theirs, help you understand the world better and also help you understand how you fit into it.
But on this journey, you should always be asking yourself who you are and why you are here. That is a question that only you can answer. Some of you are graduating to become engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and accountants, with a clear goal on where you want to go in life. Others may not know the answers to those questions yet, but that's not a bad thing. You don't have to have it all figured out today, or next year or even in ten years, as long as you keep searching and learning and challenging yourself.
Because no matter which course or career path you set upon, there is always room in your life to reconsider those essential questions. Too often we become complacent with our lives. It is very easy to get comfortable in your own situation -- with your job, with your social groups, with your volunteer activities, with your travels or sedentary life. Just because you've gotten the job or the family or the economic security you always wanted, you shouldn't stop pushing forward.
I implore you to keep finding new challenges in life. Intellectual curiosity is something we have too little of these days, but it is the ingredient for much of our fulfillment in life. In fact, it's probably the most important reason why I ended up as a member of Congress. The search for new challenges and to learn about the world around us made me want to try to make this world a better place.
I can't pretend to know much of everything there is to know or that my career path was the right one for anybody but me, but I can tell you that my life today is very different than I thought it would be when I was your age. The fact that I'm here at all, representing Binghamton in Congress, is the best example I can offer of how life will surprise us. As I hinted at earlier, I was not voted "most likely to succeed" by my high school class.
My point is that too often, people come to believe that the paths their lives will take are predestined; that we were dealt a certain hand in life and there are no more cards in the deck. If you let it, that closed-minded thinking can become your reality. That's a grave mistake and you shouldn't fall into that trap. Some of you may fear failure or are worried that if you set your goals too high that you will fall short. But you must remember that there is no greater failure than not trying at all.
My experience in the Navy changed my life because it broadened my horizons. I went from caring only about myself and the people I knew to finding out that I'm just one small dot on this planet, which is one small dot in the universe. But I decided that I was going to try to do everything I could to make my hometown, my state, my country and this world a better, more just and fairer place for everyone.
As a result, I have the great honor of representing roughly 700,000 New Yorkers in Congress. It is a job that I take very seriously. Every morning I wake up determined to fight as hard as I can on their behalf. If I only did my job halfheartedly, I would let down 700,000 people and I would be doing a great disservice to the principles on which our nation was founded.
As you examine who you are, who you want to be, and where you're going in life, I urge you to find ways to challenge yourself beyond your own immediate circumstances to contribute to the greater good of society. Whenever you think you've done as much as you can, do more.
Regardless of how certain you are of what you want from life and what you want to give to the world, I hope that all of you, to some degree, find yourselves looking back a year from now, or ten or 35 years from now, and asking, "How did I get here?" Life would be no fun if we knew how it's all going to play out beforehand. And if you achieve all of your goals, then you probably weren't as ambitious as you should have been.
I truly hope that you find the answers to those big questions in life. And once you find those answers, I hope you challenge yourself to do more, and then ask those questions again.
For today, you know who you are -- a graduate of Binghamton University -- and why you are here -- because you've conquered one of the most important challenges in life. I congratulate you once again on your remarkable achievements. Good luck. I wish you all the very best that life has to offer. |
