EAG: DEERFIELD, Mass. – Hedge fund manager and school choice advocate Whitney Tilson delivered a commencement speech to a group of 9th grade boys graduating from his alma mater Friday that’s getting a lot of attention.
Tilson told those in attendance at the Eaglebrook School commencement last Friday that his 14-year-old daughter urged him to share his “#1 Immutable Law of the Universe” that he’s harped about for years: “If you are a dumbass, there will be consequences!”
“I like it because it’s memorable: I’m pretty sure the word ‘dumbass’ has never been used in any commencement address ever,” Tilson told the graduating class in a speech that was later posted toYouTube. “The question is, is it meaningful? I think it is.”
Tilson used a sports analogy to point out that while scorers in most sports get the acclaim, it’s defense that wins championships, and defense in life is making good choices, even if they’re unpopular.
“I’m talking about the blindingly obvious things, ranging from touching a stove to see if it’s hot (I did that once) or touching an electric fence to see if it’s live (I did that too), all the way up to things that can derail – or end – a life,” he said before recounting a young student from Atlanta who was jailed after a night of binge drinking, and his own experience in a Zimbabwe jail.
“Look around at all of your classmates and ponder this question: who do you think is going to be really successful in life, not just financially, but in every way?”
That’s the way parents talk to their kids. Good for him. Plain, straight talk.
Our daughter’s teen friends used to often hang out at our house and sit an talk to me even if our daughter wasn’t home. I never understand why.
Eventually I learned it was because I talked to them as people. I didn’t talk “down” to them. The grandkids’ friends are now hanging out at our daughter’s house.
So, I was the class smart-ass. Didn’t do me much good, either.
Served Obola and his entire administration pretty well …
But then, puppets are SPOSED to be dumb …
izlamo delenda est …
My bad, PJ. I meant to uprate you, but my big thumb plotted against me. Two thumbs up👍👍
About half the petitions I file in Family Court (which a former co-worker once dubbed “that endless conveyor belt of human misery”) are from people who have made poor choices in life. They didn’t take their education/opportunities seriously, they didn’t use birth control, they had children by crazy women or unreliable men, they kept drifting back into the same abusive relationship over and over again, etc., etc., etc.).
They other half are filed by people who purport to be adults but act like 4-year-olds.
You can never go wrong by betting on human stoopidity.