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Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Her name needs no introduction. J.K. Rowling, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association most recently.

Words that left her mouth into my heart, penetrating through my blood into my bones, hitting my soul. Similar beliefs I have always shared with friends close to me, now delivered by one of the most influential writers of our time in such beautifully crafted literature.

I particularly love these below.

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.

And that is why I isolate myself from people who think otherwise. Parents included. It’s disgusting how much one dares to blame his/ her parents for his/ her actions.

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates…

Hence we need to embrace failure.

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.

A very important decision to make by oneself, especially in a meritocracy-driven country like Singapore. I’m glad for my opinionated nature in this country.

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.

Tell that to our beloved education system in Singapore. Can you just imagine a school banner that says “DARE TO FAIL” as opposed to “SCORE 9 DISTINCTIONS! YOU CAN!”?

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Again, tell that to our beloved education system in Singapore. And all those brainwashed elitists who snub our local culture and orders a “coffee” instead of a “kopi” (local slang) with an acquired British accent at a local kopitiam (loosely translated to “coffeeshop” in our local slang).

Mate, if your insecure soul feels more important with that attitude, take it to a Starbucks and quit validating your worth by means of putting down a Chinese-speaking 60-year-old making your kopi.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

I’ve been there, and no amount of words can describe how grateful I am for the friends who stood by myself in my darkest moments. That is the same reason why I do not waste my time anymore patronizing selfish, self-centred insecure people, regardless of social importance. Remove them from their fancy job titles and academic qualifications. What do they have? A Louis Vuitton bag for a soul?

… personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

There should be a campaign for Singapore’s better health based on this speech.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation.

In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Although a campaign on imagination should never be left in the hands of Singaporeans. We’d probably introduce guidelines on what one should and should not imagine anyway. And we’d assume the imagination of any human nudity is wrong. Thank god Leonardo Da Vinci, Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele and who not, were not born in this country.

I strongly urge you to view and read J.K. Rowling’s speech at Harvard Commencement today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Absolutely moving. Oh such great selection of content with higher purpose.

Via: Harvard Magazine / Speech copyright 2008 J.K. Rowling