Pre-Ramble: In commencement addresses all across the country, graduates received variations on great words of wisdom. Speakers ranging from heads of state to actors to business executives delivered messages of perseverance and triumph mixed with a humbling measure of cautionary hope.

This past Sunday’s New York Times (6/14/09, p. A18) offered snippets from some of these messages …

• President Obama told graduates at the University of Notre Dame that they were a generation who must “find a path back to prosperity…”
• At the University of Wisconsin, buzz-kill Major League Baseball commissioner, Bud Selig lamented that this was “the most difficult economic environment since the Great Depression…”
• Her Supreme Talk Show Goddess-ness, Oprah Winfrey regaled Duke University graduates with a run down on her accomplishments, accolades, multiple homes, and private jets, reminding them that unless they have been able to “help somebody else move forward, they haven’t completed the circle of success.”

I was particularly inspired by co-founder of Google, Larry Page’s remarks to students at the University of Michigan (a fine, fine institution; see shameless plug above right):

… I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up. I was thinking, What if we could download the whole Web and just keep the links? And I grabbed a pen and started writing. Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself that it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the Web. He nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer, but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated. Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later, we happened upon a better way of ranking Web pages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it.

The Take-Away: Dah! What he said!  And this advice isn’t just for the newly minted graduate, it’s for we older vintages as well. Take up residence with that “optimism of youth” … Start dreaming and, “WHEN A REALLY GREAT DREAM SHOWS UP, GRAB IT!”

Post Note: Interestingly, if you google the word “dreams” the first entry is:

An Online Guide to Dream Interpretation, Mar. 6, 2009 … Dream moods is a free online dictionary source to help you interpret the meanings to your dreams. Check out our 4000+ word dream dictionary, … www.dreammoods.com/ – Cached – Similar … Dream Moods A-Z Dictionary, Common Dreams, Teeth Dreams, Naked Dreams, Chase Dreams, Dream info, Dream Bank, Flying Dreams … More results from dreammoods.com >> …

We have to assume that Larry was able to interpret his dream as, “You will be wildly, beyond-your-wildest-dreams, a bazillion times over, incredibly, stupid, crazy successful with this idea you just dreamed here!”

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