Privilege is a word that has taken quite a beating lately. Privilege today seems to be the worst thing you can have. I would like to take a moment to defend it.
A lot of you are thinking. I can’t believe they invited this guy. Too late. I say use your privilege. I grew up a Jewish boy from New York. That is a privilege if you want to be a comedian.
If I messed up a funny story around my relatives, they would go: That’s not how you tell that joke....
So on my staff in the 90s, we had a lot of Harvard guys. They were fantastic, but I could never understand why these guys were so embarrassed about being from Harvard. They would never talk about it. They would never mention it. I’m not talking about Harvard now. I’m talking about the way it used to be. You’re never going to believe this. Harvard used to be a great place to go to school. Now it’s Duke.
You didn’t fake your fabulous education. You earned it. Be proud of it. Don’t just drop it on people right before you serve in pickleball. Okay? Duke 24, coming at you. But if it comes up, if someone asks, don’t say it. Looking down, stubbing your toe in the dirt. When someone asks, where did you go to school? You say, I went to Duke.
Stop rushing to what you perceive as some valuable endpoint. Learn to enjoy the expenditure of energy that may or may not be on the correct path. Now, if you have been at this amazing place for four years and still have no idea what you like, what you’re interested in, or what you want to do in life, you are the luckiest ones here.
Those of you that think you know what you want to do are very likely wrong, and perhaps even overestimating your ability to do it. You have convinced yourself that you know who you are and what’s going on in the world. You don’t know either. The less secure and confident you feel in the direction, the more surprises and excitement you will have in store. That’s good.
So the better the job you’ve done in finding a path for yourself, the more boring and predictable your life is going to be. If you’re sitting here today completely confused, feeling lost, adrift, and totally abandoned, you might even be a genie. I say congratulations, you win the Duke commencement ceremonies of 2024. You are about to go on a heck of a ride.
About work, you know how they always say nobody ever looks back on their life and wishes they spent more time at the office? Well, why? Why don’t they? Guess what? Depends on the job. If you took a stupid job that you find out you hate and you don’t leave, that’s your fault.
Don’t blame work. Work is wonderful. I definitely will not be looking back on my life wishing I worked less. If that’s not how you feel at work. Quit. On your lunch break. Disappear. Make people go. What happened to that guy? I don’t know, he said he was getting something to eat. Never came back. The one thing I know about this gang here you are all worker bees. And I mean that as the highest compliment.
And this is probably the biggest point I would like to make to you here today regarding humor. I’m going to try and reach across a couple generations here to tell you the most important thing. I am confident that I know about life. I’m 70. I’m done. You are just starting. I only want to help you.
The slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor is okay. It’s not something you need to fix. I totally admire the ambitions of your generation to create a more just and inclusive society. I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people’s feelings and the million and one ways we all do that every second of every day.
It’s lovely to want to fix those things, but, all caps, BUT, what I need to tell you as a comedian, do not lose your sense of humor. You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through. Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor.
And I know all of you here are going to use all of your brains and muscle and soul to improve the world, and I know you’re going to do a bang up job, and when you’re done, as I am now, I bet the world because of you will be a much better place. But it will still not make a lot of sense. It’ll be a better, different, but still pretty insane mess, and it is worth the sacrifice of an occasional discomfort to have some laughs. Don’t lose that.
You got to laugh. That is the one thing at the end of your life you will not wish you did less of. Humor is the most powerful, most survival, essential quality you will ever have or need to navigate through the human experience.
The other thing I see going on that throws a lot of people off these days is thinking, I’ve got to make as much money as I can. I personally believe the real game is I want to have the coolest job. When I started out as a comedian, I did not think I was funny. I thought, I’m a little funny. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be that funny. I just have to be funny enough to feed one person.
That was my actual plan. That’s how you think when you do not have a Duke education. I just wanted to have this super cool job. And cool is a word not easily defined. It’s really just whatever you think is cool. So just go for what you think is the coolest.
Money will be made eventually, somehow. Try not to think about it so much. I see this messing people up a lot. Put it to the side a little. Don’t think about having, think about becoming. Having is fine, but focus on becoming. That is where it’s at.
But the one thing I really do care about communicating to you is don’t lose your humor. Forget the rest. Forget your education, your degree, your privilege. All of you here would do fantastically well without any of it. All of you here, without question, are the best of the best.
Just don’t lose your, your humor. It’s not an accessory. It’s your Stanley Cup water bottle on the brutal long hike of life. And humor is not just for the stress relief or even just a simple fun of laughing, but for the true perspective of the absurdity of life. That’s why you don’t want to lose it.
