Thank you for giving me the honor of speaking with you today. I had to think very long and hard about this speech. I want this speech to be useful to you. I see and work with a lot of young people, and the majority of you may now be starting your practical life, so you are in that same position. So I wanted to share with you some lessons I've learned through life, and in some sense the advice I would give my own children. One of whom, by the way, is in this audience today as a member of the graduating class of 2025. Thank you.
And while it is true that I don't know most of you personally, I care deeply about each of you. You are Longhorns, you are young people from a community I call my own. You are the future of my city, of my country, of my world. So please know I could not possibly care more about you. And it is in that spirit that I want to have a real heart to heart with you.
The first thing that I want to tell you is that each of us, and collectively every generation is dealt a hand. You cannot change the cards in your hand, but you can choose how to play them. If you were the graduating class of 1936, you would've seen a world sliding into war. Fascism was rising in Europe, and within three years, the deadliest conflict in human history would begin. If you were the graduating class of 1963, you would've seen a young president gunned down in Dallas, the beginning of a long war in Vietnam, and a nation wrestling with civil rights and its very soul. But you are the graduating class of 2025, and you've been told about the environmental catastrophe that awaits us. You see the division within our country, you hear that half of Republicans and Democrats don't want their kids to marry someone who is not like them, a Republican or a Democrat. You were told that when your parents were graduating, they could get a job and buy a house within a year that they could afford a car, and that you will have difficulty doing that.
I want to tell you that these things, much like many complex social truths, are true only in degree. Social truths are not true in the sense that two plus two is four, they have nuance to them. Yes, it is true that houses are less affordable, but it's also true that the average house in the 1950s was 900 square feet, and it's almost three times as large today in our country. Look at a pickup truck from the 1950s and an F-150 today, and one is twice the size of the other. So why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand that there is complexity to narrative and you can make a story around one way or another. What's important is what you take from the story. Is it that you can't afford a house or is it that you can, if you redefine what it is for you?
And this brings me to my second point that I want to make to you. You are the person who will shape your own life. No one else can impact or change your life for better or worse to the extent you can. Years ago, I hired psychologists to come and study why certain people who worked in my company were successful and others unfortunately were not. The biggest reason they found was that the people who struggled were always looking for something external to pin the blame on, while those who were winners would shape their success and their failure as a function of what they themselves did. The psychologist told me that this idea is known as a locus of control. Keep it focused on what you can do.
When I came to UT Austin in 1996, it was a different time. I had come here from my native Lahore, Pakistan, and I didn't know a soul in Texas, the internet was barely there, and cell phones, particularly for a student, weren't a thing. It took me days to find a place to stay, weeks to get my social security number, and even more days to actually get a phone installed when I came here on TWA airlines, which has thankfully gone out of business, and I'll tell you in a moment why I'm happy about that. TWA lost my bags. So I had travelers checks, which are for the younger in the audience, caveman era, prepaid checks. I had two shirts, two trousers, and a pair of shoes knowing no one in Texas. The airline didn't find my bags for three months and refused to pay me. In the meanwhile, in the first week I was here, I got robbed in my apartment on 29 and a half street.
The next morning I was utterly defeated. I was broken. I walked to that payphone opposite the Jack in the box at the corner of the drag and 26th street. And I called my mother. The operator told me that it would take $18 to make that international phone call. So I got 72 quarters and I put them in one by one in the payphone. And then after some time I heard my mother's voice on the other end. I had been dying to hear hers. She very lovingly and enthusiastically said, how are you? Is everything well, are you happy? And for a moment, I just wanted to break down and just tell her everything, that I was miserable, that I'd been robbed, that I wanted nothing more than to be rescued from this place. But then in that moment, a voice in my head said to me, so what can she do? She's at the other end of the world. You'll have to deal with this in this moment on your own. In any case, you'll just worry her. Toughen up. Get through it. And so I did. I lied to my mother and told her I was very well. I was incredibly happy.
But you know what happened then? That lie became the truth. Over time, things got better. I found a better place to stay. A year or two went by and I met Zaib, who was to become my lovely wife here on campus. I devoted myself to my field of study. I fell in love with the PCL and discovered ancient Persian manuscripts of poetry that kept me enthralled for hours. I met some of the most beautiful human beings I have known in my life. My professors, my friends at UT Austin.
So this brings me to the third thing I wanted to tell you. Sometimes life brings you to the verge of breaking down, the very edge. And the easiest thing to do is to give in. But even in that moment, there are two choices, and it is in your power to make the considered choice. Sometimes the greatest difficulty lies not in what comes after the decision to persevere, but the very moment of that decision to persevere.
There are three things that carry you through life. So cling to those. Each of you may define these as you wish and as you see fit, but human beings are born into this world with a natural need for these. Collectively, they serve as one's compass. These three things are faith, family, purpose. Perhaps your definition of faith is faith in a higher power. Perhaps it is faith in humanity. Perhaps it is faith that good triumphs over evil in the fullness of time. Perhaps it is all of them. But that is what illuminates your life when you are alone. Because if you have faith, you are never alone.
Family. Whether the parents that raised you, the siblings you grew up with, or the family you added along the way, the human beings in your life who matter most, these are the people with whom every endeavor becomes sweeter. In whose gaze, every accomplishment becomes meaningful and in whose appreciation, your efforts find validation.
Purpose, a higher calling, something beyond your person, something larger than you, something that links you in the chain of human experience and accomplishment as an arrow that points in the direction of progress, not as a point untethered to anything but itself, but as an important station in a larger celestial journey. What is your purpose? The eradication of pain, the ending of disease, the spreading of the wealth of knowledge, the protection of the weak. You are more than you can possibly comprehend if you infuse your life with purpose.
Look, what comes next will not be easy because what comes next is life. It will be challenging, but also full of opportunity. Never forget that you are the actor. At times life will happen to you. But most of the time you are the one that needs to drive it, shape it, make something better of it. You are the actor. You are the author of the future. You are the helper of those in need. You are the key to your own self-improvement. You are our best hope. You are my best hope. Good luck and hook 'em.
