I went through five years of Engineering thinking that they would never end. My last year passed so slowly that it felt like someone else kept deliberately hitting the Pause button on the remote control of my life. Getting my certificate felt like the biggest key to the door that opened to the rest of my life. I have since realised that graduating was very easy and simple compared to having a job, getting married or having a baby. It is funny how things change. Since I am now a stay at home mom, with a 4 month old who still has not yet learned to move from where she is ( yaaay for me ) I have a couple of hours each day where I can do what I totally please and recently that has been watching commencement speeches on YouTube, talks from TED and other inspiring videos. I think I have grown up or matured in some way that now I actually can make use of other people’s advice and have the real ability to think deeply about other peoples ideas. For some reason I now think that it is so great learning from other people’s mistakes versus having to make my own and learning from them. Now I find myself remembering many of my mother’s advice and reflecting on it, sometimes realising how wonderfully true she was and how much time I could have saved myself. Here is a list of inspiring yet very funny videos I’ve seen recently that are worth seeing:
Oprah’s Commencement Speech – A typical Oprah style talk with lots of encouragement and self-insight
JK Rowling’s Commencement Speech – Amazingly and magically spun by the author of the Harry Potter Books
Ken Robinson for TED – An educator and a Knight but definitely a simple and very funny and fatherly figure who wants children to be creative, talented and successful.
Jill Bolte for TED – A brain scientist, a stroke and the once in a life chance to learn about it from the inside out.
