Source: Rick Diamond / Getty
This weekend was Graduation Weekend at a lot of colleges. USC-Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism had Oprah Winfrey as their commencement speaker. She gave the grads a couple of life gems
Eat a good breakfast, pay your bills on time, say thank you to people and really mean it, put your phone away at the dinner table. Know that what you tweet and post on Instagram today might be asked about in an interview tomorrow or 20 years from tomorrow. Know that it is more important to be interested than interesting. Invest in a quality mattress and don’t cheap out on your shoes. If you are fighting with someone you really love then find your way back to them because life is short even on our longest days. In life you are either principled or you are not. Your job is not always going to fulfill you. There will be some days that you just might be bored. Other days you might not feel like going to work at all-go anyway. Your job is not who you are it is just what you are doing on your way to who you will become.
Chadwick Boseman spoke at his alma mater, Howard University. He told the story of how Howard prepared him for his future and about negotiating and speaking his mind. He was once on a soap opera. After doing the role for a couple days they called him into the office to ask him if he had any questions. He did. He had questions about the character he was portraying. He wanted to know where his father was? Where was his mother? he received stereotypical answers. He was later “re-casted.” A quick Google search and my good memory revealed that the role was on All My Children as Erica Kane’s stepson that was later portrayed by Michael B. Jordan!
