"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. 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...
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that 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...
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better..."
-Harry Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling's Commencement Address at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association (June 2008) entitled "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"
To watch the video and read the entire address, please click here.
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