Thank you, Mr. President.

How satisfying it is to be a part of today’s ceremony. This is an important moment in the life of Southwestern University. It is an important moment in the lives of the students who receive their degrees today. And it is a very important moment in the lives of parents and family members, who celebrate for more than one reason.

I have spent a lifetime in the academic world, but the magic of commencement has never faded for me. It is the time of fruition, the season when the academy celebrates success in its most important work. And it is an overwhelmingly positive time. For a university president, who, on other days, receives a steady stream of complaints about football losses, admissions decisions, budget allocations, or parking, this is a marvelous day! Almost no one is unhappy at commencement.

But of course, you still have to endure the commencement speaker. I’m afraid that it’s one of those customs that we just have to respect. A little like academic regalia. No one thinks it’s practical, but neither does anyone seem to think that it would be commencement without it.

My friend and colleague, Steve Sample, President of the University of Southern California, has commented that a university president is a lot like the man who mows the grass in a cemetery. Many people are under him, but not many are listening. That analogy may also apply to the commencement speaker. I will try to be brief.

Let me start with the warmest congratulations to today’s graduates. You have completed your work in a distinguished institution. With colors flying, you are completing that part of your education of sixteen or so years – that has to do with preparing you for citizenship. Not many in our society have succeeded as you have. Because you are encircled today by classmates who have met the same success, it is easy to lose sight of the distinctiveness of your achievement. But you have been at it for a very long time. You have persisted. You have qualified for an education at a challenging and highly respected university; you have pursued it; you have completed the work; you have met the standards. Congratulations, indeed! You and your families deserve to take great satisfaction on this day.

I also want to compliment your University. Southwestern has a long history in our region, the very longest. The founders of this institution brought it forth in a frontier setting, where the daily agenda for citizens was largely just to survive. The University’s founding was a visionary statement of confidence in the future and of expectations for new generations. And the University has lived to this day in that confidence and those expectations. From afar, I have watched the life of Southwestern over many years. Marvelous leaders have fashioned its present and future. Ambitious students have equipped themselves here. Able graduates project its value now.

My life has taught me how important institutions are. Civilization is sustained, and the baton is passed, within them. Southwestern is important among institutions, and it merits your lasting loyalty.

In 1776, a thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and gave us our most cherished expression of freedom and legitimate basis for law.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” he wrote, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

A creed, elegantly expressed, that has reverberated in the hearts of people around the world for more than two hundred years.

But I have wondered since my youth about that concluding phrase, “the pursuit of happiness.” It does seem to have been Jefferson’s language. Much of the political philosophy in the Declaration was derived from the writings of John Locke, but Locke’s trio was “life, liberty, and property.” Why did Jefferson choose “the pursuit of happiness?” Why did he place it on a par with life and liberty? Why did the other signers accept it without editing, even though they did alter other parts of his original draft? What, exactly, does it mean?

The graduates here today have their lives unfolding before them. This is a good moment to think a little more about this phrase that our Founders thought important enough for immortality.

There are some interpretations that I am pretty sure were not intended as the whole message: “the right to hang loose,” “the right to go with the flow,” “the right to avoid responsibility” Actually, Jefferson would probably grant even those expressions as choices that free people could make in their own pursuit of happiness, but there must have been something more serious in the minds of the Founders who, in the very same document, pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

For me, Jefferson’s phrase is a positive, confident label for what life is mainly about. It implies a coincidence between what we ought to be doing with our lives and what will bring us genuine satisfaction. It means that each one of us has the freedom to choose the path that we judge to lead toward the greatest sense of accomplishment and contribution, the greatest sense of devotion toward values deeply held, the greatest sense of faithfulness to the most important people in our lives.

Pursuing happiness is not about self-indulgence, but about identifying the roots of personal value and making a commitment to them. There are as many answers as there are of us, and that is why the right to pursue happiness must be a personal freedom.

But the very complexity of life also means that there can be no roadmap. Even when you successfully identify one of your roots of personal value, you will find that it competes against others for your own attention. For example, your progress toward a career of contribution may conflict with commitments to family, which may themselves sometimes conflict with values deeply held. Somehow you must pick out a balanced, satisfying path. Partners can help, but the choices, in the end, must be yours. They are not obvious. They are not always easy.

A while back, Tom Hanks and Geena Davis starred in a baseball movie called A League of Their Own. It was set during the Second World War, when professional baseball was suspended because so many men were in military service. An entrepreneur filled the void by putting together a women’s league. In this film, Geena Davis is the star player, and Tom Hanks is a veteran manager – uncouth, a reprobate. Davis says she is going to quit. “It just got too hard,” she says. Hanks growls back. “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

In so many aspects of life, the “hard” is indeed “what makes it great.” Actually, this is true of life at large – of the pursuit of happiness. Be ready and relish it.

Well, if you have to pick out a path, it helps to have some principles. Let me share a few that have been valuable for me:

First, work to stay positive. Progress, accomplishment, values, and support of loved ones: These are all positive things. They will not be achieved if you give in to cynicism or defeatism, the twin curses of our age. Almost always in life, there are good things to anticipate and to celebrate. Even if you have a setback – even if it is not a moment of celebration – it is still possible to learn and to focus on recovery and improvement.

As you heard in my introduction, I now have the privilege of serving as President of Houston Endowment, a philanthropy endowed by Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones. Created in 1937, it is the largest foundation in Texas and one of the oldest. Jesse Jones became one of the visionary builders of Houston, of Texas, and of the nation. He was twenty-four when he arrived in Houston in 1898, already a man at the lead in business. In the 1930s and 1940s, he served in Washington at the President’s behest, shepherding the nation through the dire period of the Great Depression and the Second World War. At the end of life, he and his wife dedicated their great fortune to a large array of charitable causes, and Houston and Texas have been vastly better for their care.

On June 16, 1925, Jesse Jones received an honorary doctorate from Southwestern University, and he spoke at commencement here. Here are words that he delivered in this place eighty-one years ago.

Positiveness is necessary to success. The positive person is likely to be the successful person. You will never succeed by “Don’ts and Can’ts.” It is sometimes taught that one of the most essential elements of success is the ability to say “No.” But I want to tell you from the fullness of my practical experience that of far greater importance is the ability to say “Yes,” and back it up. The “No” sayer and “Don’t” sayer never get very far. It takes vision, faith, and courage to say “Yes.” By saying “No’ you forego the possibility of profit whatever the proposition may be. You may save yourself trouble and losses, but there can be no profit if you say “No.” The negative person I regard as the unfortunate person. The fellow who is able to analyze everything and tell why it should not be done never gets any real practice in doing. It is the affirmative one, the positive one, who tries again and again after each failure, who gets practice enough to succeed. It is necessary to say and act “Yes” more times than you say “No,” and at the right times, if you are to make a success of your lives.

Those are the words of a legendary American, one who believed in and supported your university. Develop the vision, faith, and courage to say “yes,” and to back it up. Stay positive. How else could you possibly pursue happiness?

The second principle that I offer is this: Require the truth; own up to the truth; live the truth.

This triplet of concepts is critical to sustaining respect in your dealings with other people, both within and without your family, and it is the key to avoiding self-deception.

As President of the University of Texas, I lived daily with a dictum from Jesus, inscribed on the face of the Main Building there: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” It is a powerful sentence. Life will teach you how liberating the truth is, and, conversely, how confining failure to respect the truth becomes.

In any case, you cannot live outside the truth for long. When the late beloved Congressman from Central Texas, Jake Pickle, wrote his memoirs some years ago, he included his rules for a successful life. One of them was this: “Don’t think they won’t find out, because they will.” I once told Jake that this was a favorite of mine, because my experience had matched up to it so fully, and because I liked the playful way that he had expressed it. He just looked at me in all seriousness and said, “Oh, they will, they will.” A man of experience, I guess.

Require the truth; own up to the truth; live the truth.

The third rule is simply to use your head. The human species is the one with the big brain; it is supposed to be our comparative biological advantage. I can assure you that other people will use theirs. Pursuit of happiness is not just a matter of the heart.

Next, I encourage you to jump in. Young people have tremendous capacity to engage new enterprises, to learn, and to succeed. I have already pointed out that Thomas Jefferson was only thirty-three when he composed the Declaration, and that Jesse Jones was but twenty-four when he sprang to the top of Houston’s business leadership. Don’t underestimate your capacity to contribute and to lead, even now, especially if you also work hard to master whatever you choose to undertake.

There is a related point. From time to time in your life you may be called to serve in some manner for which you feel unprepared or unequipped. Accept the challenge if you can, and push forward with an open mind and a willingness to learn. You will marvel at the growth you find in yourself and at the richness that will enter your experience.

My last advice is this: Draw inspiration from the brilliance of human performance, not from the perfection of individuals. Marvelous things are done by real people. Learn to appreciate the greatness of what they have done without expecting them to be saints. The jewels are everywhere. Many have been passed to us through ages, like Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or Handel’s Messiah or Jane Austen’s Emma. Some have more recent origin, like Einstein’s insight into the form of the universe or the exquisite generosity of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. Some are from our time, like Vince Young’s performance in the Rose Bowl. (I couldn’t resist.)

I believe that it is with a touch from the hand of God that real people produce the breath-stopping insights and achievements of the human spirit. Don’t be afraid to feel the awe. It flows both from and toward the One who gives meaning to the happiness you pursue.

Fifty years from now, your world will be different. And you will be different because of your journey within it. My wish for every graduate here today is that your pursuit of happiness will lead to a deep satisfaction over your ability to maintain your integrity, an abiding joy over the experiences and affections that life brings, and a warm residue of exhilaration from the exquisite moments that you encounter. This is what I think Mr. Jefferson meant for each human life when he wrote the immortal phrase.

Congratulations, graduates. May God bless you, every one.