John Green Encourages Graduates To Pursue Empathy Despite The Circumstances

Graduation ceremonies are important. They mark the end of one era and the beginning of the next one. Whether you're saying goodbye to your high school school years or your time in college, commencement deserves to be celebrated. As we all know, graduation ceremonies are going to look quite different this year—if they're happening at all—due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the class of 2020 won't be able to walk across the stage, shake hands with their principal or dean and receive their diploma in person this year, there are still creative ways to mark the tremendous achievement of commencement. iHeartRadio and New York Times best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska John Green teamed up for a special graduation address for the Class of 2020. Graduates may not be able to sit amongst their classmates and listen to Green's advice for the next phase of their life, however, his wise words will rung just as true while listening from the safety of our homes.

In his commencement address, Green—who majored in English and Religious Studies at Kenyon College, graduating in 2000—encourages the Class of 2020 to pursue empathy as they move on to the next stage of their lives. "I learned a lot in school that I've carried with me through the years, but when I look back on it, it seems to me that the most important lesson was that I needed to be vigilant in my struggle toward empathy, and that learning is really a way of better understanding the world around me and the other people who inhabit it," Green says.

To emphasize his point, Green does what he does best—tells a story. "A couple years after I graduated from college, I was living in an apartment in Chicago with four friends, one of whom was a Kuwaiti guy named Hassan. And when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Hassan lost touch with his family for several weeks. In the end, his loved ones were all okay, but as you can imagine, it was a very scary time for him," Green recalls. "One of the ways he coped with this stress was by watching cable news coverage of the war constantly."

"One day we were sitting on the couch watching the news together and the anchor was like, 'we're getting new footage from the city of Baghdad.' And a camera panned across a house that had a huge hole in one wall, covered over by a piece of plywood. And on that plywood was scrawled Arabic graffiti in black spray paint," Green continues. "As the news anchor started talking about the anger on the Arab street or whatever, Hassan started laughing for the first time in days."

"I said, "What's so funny?" And he said, "The graffiti." And I said, "What's funny about it?" And Hassan said, 'It says happy birthday, sir, despite the circumstances.' For the of your life, you will have a choice about how to read graffiti in a language you don't know," Green says. "I hope that your education has encouraged you to consider the happy birthday, sir, despite the circumstances possibility. The possibility that the lives and experiences of others are as complex and as multitudinous as your own."

At the end of his commencement address, Green asks the Class of 2020 to take one minute to call to mind all of the people—family, friends, teachers and mentors—who "loved them up into this moment." After the moment is up, Green reminds the graduates that, even though they can't be with them for this important milestone, they are still so proud of all they've accomplished. Finally, Green's parting words to the graduates is simple yet poignant: "I wish you a very happy graduation, despite the circumstances."

Congratulations to the Class of 2020! iHeartRadio’s ”Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020” podcast celebrates this year’s graduating students as they take their next steps into the world. For more inspiring speeches from celebrities, athletes, business leaders and more, listen to the podcast on iHeartRadio.