WATCH: Mark Zuckerberg returns to Harvard, delivers inciting commencement speech

Mark Zuckerberg returned to Harvard on Thursday to deliver a commencement speech in the hopes to inspire the university’s 2017 graduates. But instead of delivering a generic, sometimes even patronizing, keynote, the Facebook founder delved deeper into what he thinks this day and age calls out to the new millennials gearing up to take on the real world.

Mark Zuckerberg returns to Harvard
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers speech at Harvand University. Photo courtesy of BuzzFeed News.
As many would know, Zuckerberg is technically not a Harvard alumni. The tech genius got admitted and attended the iconic Ivy League school for quite a while until he decided to drop out and leave to pursue his passion. Now, after a couple of years, a roaring tech empire and an estimated worth that has a couple of commas in it, he returns to talk about the bigger picture of life. Not just tips on achieving one’s goal, but instead, he focused on finding your own purpose in life and passing it along to help everyone else to find theirs, too. He even pushed it further by saying that the choice to create one’s path in life is also very much possible if he/she gets committed to it.

“Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for. Purpose is what creates true happiness,” he explained.

Zuckerberg elaborated and even touched on the subject of what he believes are the “three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.” According to him, first is by taking on big meaningful projects together; second is by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose; and finally, the third one is by building community across the world.

What is striking about Zuckerberg’s commencement address is that he grounded it in a way that everyone in the Harvard Class of 2017 will understand and relate to it. His youthfulness, despite being one of the most well-renowned CEOs in the world, was what made it for him to connect easier with his audience. It does not sound like a speech that is laced with condescension or infused with flowery words. Instead, he mined from his personal experience and even got candid about his struggles of being a clueless 22-year-old company founder who got pressure from his board to just sell out his creation.

Boosting the morale of the batch, Zuckerberg continued to urge everyone to not settle for something just because of fear of being rejected, failing or oftentimes misunderstood. He advised them to just forge on despite getting the feeling of being unqualified or unskilled because at some point everybody needs to start somewhere. And for most people who do not have the luxury of being handed down resources to fall back on, it is always at the bottom of any career ladder.

“It's good to be idealistic. But be prepared to be misunderstood. Anyone working on a big vision will get called crazy, even if you end up right. Anyone working on a complex problem will get blamed for not fully understanding the challenge, even though it's impossible to know everything upfront. Anyone taking initiative will get criticized for moving too fast, because there's always someone who wants to slow you down,” he added.

“In our society, we often don't do big things because we're so afraid of making mistakes that we ignore all the things wrong today if we do nothing. The reality is, anything we do will have issues in the future. But that can't keep us from starting.”

WATCH: Mark Zuckerberg delivers commencement speech at the Harvard University


-- Ana, The Summit Express



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