You are nothing special! Speech puts those young whippersnappers in their place

A lot of Americans really loved an English teacher’s
recent commencement address.

“No matter how often your paternal caped crusaders swooped
in to save you, you are nothing special,” said David
McCullough Jr, son of historian David
McCullough Sr., who spoke June 1 to the seniors at
Massachusetts Wellesley High and delivered the now-viral
“You Are Nothing Special speech.” He was merciless.

“Your planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its
solar system. Your solar system is not the center of your
galaxy. Astrophysicists assure us the universe has no
center, therefore you cannot be it,” McCullough said.

People saw it as a long overdue wake-up call to an A-for-
effort generation made soft by a wishy-washy liberal
education.

“I wish Barack Obama was sitting there!” said
one post.

And he certainly warned students that success would not
just fall into their laps. But he was not telling them to
seek wealth.

“If you’ve learned anything in your four years I hope it’s
that education should be for, rather than material
advantage, the exhilaration of learning.”

He was not telling them to do whatever the boss tells you.

“I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than
you love it and believe in its importance.”

And he predicted that if you do what you love, you’ll end
up helping other people.

“You too will discover the great and curious truth of the
human experience is that selflessness is the best thing
you can do for yourself, the sweetest things in life then
come only with the recognition that you’re not special.
Because everyone is.”

Because everyone is. And that’s the rest of the speech.