Simply beautifully true… …… powerful ………important …messages …..about kindness.

‘what i regret most in my life are failures of kindness.’ continuing my tradition of starting off the new year with some words of inspiration and much needed positivity (see previous years: 2020, 2019, and 2018).as we begin a new year and try to move on from the trials and upsets of the previous year, GSs 2013 address provides some excellent advice - everything we do should be done in kindness. selfishness is a sickness we are all susceptible to getting it but, fortunately, theres a cure. do

”Down the rough ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who over the course of his life has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people with all of their best years ahead of that (that would be you) And I intent to respect that tradition.”And so he talks about the things he’s done, things perhaps someone else might think he would regret, or sho...

https://thecollege.syr.edu/news-all/n...Beautiful and heartfelt. Professor and Author George Saunders' 2013 Convocation Address.

This copy is signed by George Saunders.This is a slightly expanded version of a commencement speech given by the author at Syracuse University May 11. 2013.

Since it is graduation time again, I thought I would revisit one of my favorite commencement addresses, namely, the speech the fiction writer George Saunders delivered at Syracuse in 2013. Although it is mercifully short—a quality that should (alas!) be true of every blessed graduation speech—it also contains a powerful message.Mixed in with the humor, and personal anecdotes (include one memorable tale about a Sumatran river and monkey-poop), Saunders tells the graduates one important fact about...

. . . success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it. My oldest son will graduate from college on Saturday. I'll sit and watch, and try not to cry. The kid who once ate the dog food the dog didn't want will have a degree in Philosophy. What he will do with that degree is anyone's guess. I like to joke that his job will involve knowing the difference between a Grande and a Venti, but who knows? As his adviser swears, my son can write and he can think, and that puts him

Here’s the simple 2013 Syracuse University commencement speech, which I had read before, online, and now reread in hardcover. Why? Because I wake up every day and I go to sleep these days looking at social media and newspaper articles and see that his simple message is sorely needed:"What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.”Here is Trish’s sweet review:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...Since I am a teacher, I go to graduations every year and my eyes always mist over at that

Congratulations, by the way is a slightly expanded version of the commencement speech George Saunders gave at Syracuse University on May 11, 2013 - and it’s truly wunnerful! Saunders makes the case for a life lived with purposeful kindness and unselfishness at the forefront, and does so in his amusing, charming and eloquent style. It’s a kinda corny sentiment, and exactly what you’d expect to hear at this sort of ceremony - a fact Saunders wryly notes at the beginning - but an important one to k...

And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been. I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful. A Commencement Speech that everyone should listen once!

Glad I got out of the library. It's a pretty little book, but $14? I think of all the wonderful literature out there one can buy for the same price. Look this up on the internet and read in ten minutes. A nice sentiment to preach to graduates to be kind, but nothing remarkable in the language or insights or advice.

Be kind now. Repeat as required.I just gave away the entire book ... my first act of kindness.

Ok, so I will admit to reading this slim volume tonight to get to 101 books this year (my reading goal), but I think I will read it every year on New Year's Eve. Absolutely beautiful, and a good reminder about what is truly important.Edit Jan 3 2022 - so it’s been a few years since I read this, but I think it might be an even better New Year’s Day tradition - it’s inspired me to tackle this year with more kindness and compassion, and feels like a great way to start the year. Plus, I’m now a book...

Only twenty pages, but George Saunders makes the most of his speech, to the Syracuse University graduating class 0f 2013. He speaks of his own life and his mistakes as a adult. But mostly the speech is about kindness. Given the horrendous climate of unkindness, that has taken the U.S. by storm, I was really eager and needed to read this. It made me feel better and that's something in this day and age.

Stopped by the library to take something back, and always, always leave with something. For shame. If I read one book a day, I have enough books to read for a year but here I am taking books home to read. Anyway, this is a feel good book and in movie form, "Pay it Forward." Recently I read something about Saunders giving this address on kindness to a graduating college class. I did not go looking for the book but when I read the cover and back, I knew it was that book. Thanks to my mother, I'm a...

English professor, and renowned author, George Saunders, tells undergraduates to 'err in the direction of kindness.' The only thing I can say is he did it so beautifully!https://thecollege.syr.edu/news-all/n...

This book is the convocation speech George Saunders gave to the 2013 graduating class at Syracuse University.George Saunders is the kind of old white guy that we want to give us life advice. He doesn't have many answers, and I argue this makes his advice even more valuable. He has only a few good hints, gleaned after a lifetime of rough and tumble. His dedication at the beginning of the book mentions his grandparents, in loving memory. In the course of the speech he tells us that when we become

Very slender volume - I read it in 10 minutes - that packs a whole lot of punch. This is the convocation address George Saunders delivered at Syracuse University in May 2013. You can watch it on YouTube (12 minutes), but I think it is much better quietly read and pondered than said.The central message is very simple - try to be kinder - but the sentiment is delivered so eloquently and memorably that it is something I will carry with me and mull over from time to time. An instant classic, much li...

I thank my friend Trish for pointing out George Saunders' Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness to me. I loved it and I am relieved I still have time to be kinder hoping that later on I will feel less regret. For Saunders can teach us a lesson that we should not forget, "What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness." Yes, let's follow his advice:"Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fo...

Brief but salient; the perfect Saunders reminder that kindness is that which really brings us together. It is something that is so easy to lose sight of in the busy, ambitious world, but that is never regrettable.