5月25日，麻省剑桥，春寒料峭，阴雨绵绵。然而，这并不能阻挡从世界各地赶来的哈佛校友、毕业生和他们家长的脚步，因为今天对他们来说是个值得庆祝的日子，哈佛大学第366届毕业典礼。
去年，哈佛大学邀请了大名鼎鼎的好莱坞导演史蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格作为毕业典礼嘉宾。他的《倾听内心低语》的精彩演讲，博古通今地将电影制作和灵感进行了深刻而又风趣的解说。
今年，哈佛大学在选择致辞嘉宾上又费了一番苦心，最后邀请了哈佛校史上著名的“辍学生”，他就是 Facebook 的创始人兼首席执行官马克·扎克伯格。 小扎的妻子普莉希拉·陈，哈佛2007级毕业生，也和他一起来到了现场，坐在了观众席上。
这位33岁的亿万富翁，在哈佛上学的时候，偷偷建立了一个叫FaceMash的网站。他从学校师生的个人主页上拍了照片，放到该网站上，然后再让学生根据魅力指数给照片排名。因为很多照片都是未经当事人许可拍摄的，因此遭到了许多人投诉，学校勒令小扎把该网站给关了。这个网站，就是Facebook的前身。
受挫的扎克伯格并没有死心，重新建立了一个网站Facebook，并于大二的时候从哈佛大学辍学，专心从事于他的创业项目。如今，Facebook 已经成为了全球最流行的社交网络平台，拥有了近19亿的活跃用户。
时隔十三年，小扎重新回到母校。哈佛大学授予了这位年轻的创业家荣誉法学博士学位。更巧的是，十年前, 另一位哈佛辍学生比尔盖茨，也作为毕业典礼的演讲嘉宾，受邀回到哈佛大学接受了母校授予的荣誉学位。在比尔盖茨的演讲词中，他说道：“老爸，我总是跟你说，我会回来拿到我的学位的。”这回，小扎调皮地模仿了盖茨，在他的个人Facebook主页上，放了一张和父母的合影，幽默地说道:” 老妈，我总是跟你说，我会回来拿到我的学位的！”
演讲一开始，小扎首先抛给了在座毕业生两个问题来活跃气氛：“有多少人记得你在收到哈佛录取通知邮件的时候在干什么？”“有多少人记得你在哈佛的第一堂课是怎么样的？”小扎说他收到哈佛录取通知书的时候还在玩电脑游戏，看到邮件后激动地跑下楼告诉了他爸爸。后来到哈佛上的第一节课是计算机121。
那天上课他迟到了，于是匆匆忙忙套上件T 恤就冲向了教室，结果没有意识到自己的衣服穿反了。不知情的小扎说他不明白为什么那天没人理他，除了一个叫KX Jin的同学（全名Kang-Xing Jin，貌似华裔或韩裔)。于是乎俩人就成了好朋友，一直在一起研究题目，到后来KX Jin也跟着小扎一起创业，现在KXJin则担任Facebook工程部门的副总裁。“所以对人要友善。”这是小扎对毕业生的忠告。
当然，身为人父的扎克伯格，也不忘表达自己对妻子普莉希拉·陈的爱意和感激。他说，在哈佛大学短暂的学习生涯中，最美好的回忆就是遇到妻子普莉希拉。小扎称妻子是他生命中最重要的人，而台下的普莉希拉·陈听到这段真挚的话语，也不禁湿润了眼眶。
接下来，小扎开始切入正题，围绕着使命感（Purpose）给哈佛毕业生上了一课：我们不但要找到自己的目标，更重要的是创造一个让每个人都肩负使命感的世界，这才是快乐的源泉。
在我们父母那个年代，使命感大多来源于工作、教会和社区。但如今，科技和自动化的不断发展会取代越来越多的工作，所以找到真正能让人奋斗的使命感至关重要，也只有这样才能推动社会的前进。
小扎说他在哈佛宿舍创办Facebook的时候，就曾告诉他的朋友KX Jin，自己对把哈佛校园连接起来这件事感到非常激动，他相信有一天一定会有某个人能做到把整个世界连接起来。而正是秉持着这个使命感，他们团队才有动力不断的前进，才会有了我们今天看到的Facebook。
小扎在讨论了价值观后巧妙地过渡到了方法论：如何能够做到让每个人肩负使命感呢？ 他总结出了三点：
1. 着手做有意义的项目：
扎克伯格说：“每一代人都有自己的决定性工程。例如，超过三十万的人一起齐心协力，把人类送上了月球。数百万志愿者为全世界的小孩打疫苗来预防小儿麻痹症。又有数百万的人共同建造了胡佛水坝和其他伟大的项目。这些项目不仅给为之工作的人们提供了使命感，他们也为整个国家提供了荣誉感，让我们知道我们能够做出伟大的事情。”
小扎还与毕业生分享了他的经验：“任何事情刚开始时，往往只有一个想法的雏形。只有在上手做后，想法才能日渐清晰明朗。但是，首先一定要行动起来。”
同时，小扎也给想做一番丰功伟业的毕业生提了个醒：要做好被人误解的准备。任何致力于远大愿景的人都可能会被人看作是疯子，即使最后事实证明他们是对的。不要害怕犯错误，因为我们现在做的任何事情，以后回过头来看都会有问题，但是这不能阻止我们开始着手去做。
2. 重新定义平等，让每个人都有追求使命感的自由。
小扎说他认识很多创业者，没有人会因为可能赚不到钱而不去创业，更多的人不敢去创业是因为倘若他们失败了，没有很好的缓冲来支撑。
小扎认为目前的社会体系有问题，他觉得人们不应该光靠GDP 这个经济指标来衡量社会的进步，而应该以有多少人认为自己在社会上的角色有价值来衡量。
他还提倡探索“普遍基本收入”这样的观念，让每个人都有机会去尝试新事物。
可是，要建立起一个能够赋予每个人追求使命的自由的社会体系，却不是免费的，需要大批像盖茨和小扎一样的企业家通过慈善捐赠等手段来资助。这也是为什么小扎和妻子普莉希拉要启动Chan Zuckerberg Initiative项目的原因，致力于从医疗和教育两个基础领域来解决严重的贫富差距问题。
3. 建立社区
小扎这里所提到的社区（community，） 不仅仅是区域性的，他倡导的是一个更广的概念 — 建造全人类的社区。因为，没有一个国家可以凭借自己的力量打败气候变暖，或者防止疾病传播，这些都需要全世界人们共同的合作、努力和奋斗。
也许，这里小扎在委婉地表达对特朗普一些政策的不满：不管你来自何方，什么种族，我们都不应该孤立彼此，而是要团结起来，才能扩大视野，真正地解决问题。
尽管是在美国，尽管是在哈佛，扎克伯格的演讲对中国大学生也一样有意义。
北京大学心理咨询师徐凯文在《时代空心病和焦虑经济学》的演讲中提到，目前很多大学生身上有一种叫做“空心病”的心理障碍：内心空虚，觉得生活无意义；不知道自己所做的一切事情有什么真实性、重要性或价值；缺乏真正和深刻的满足感，不能体验别人为什么活得那么起劲和心满意足。徐医生做过一个统计，北大一年级的新生，包括本科生和研究生，其中有30.4%的学生厌恶学习，还有40.4%的学生认为活着人生没有意义。
怎么才能过有意义的人生？小扎在演讲中特意提到的一个小故事回答了这个问题。
约翰·F·肯尼迪总统访问美国宇航局太空中心时，看到了一个拿着扫帚的看门人。于是他走过去问这人在干什么。看门人回答说：“总统先生，我正在帮助把一个人送往月球。”
不是每个人都会像小扎一样功成名就风光一时无两，可能我们很多普通人都像这个宇航局看门人一样，做着看不到“前途”的重复性乏味工作，但我们也一样能找到自己生命的价值：无论一个人的工作是什么，世俗角度上的成功还是失败，尊重自己的职业，从中找到使命感，体会其中深切的含义，人生便有意义。
扎克伯格演讲视频：
演讲英文原文：
President Faust, Board of Overseers, faculty, alumni, friends, proud parents, members of the ad board, and graduates of the greatest university in the world,
I’m honored to be with you today because, let’s face it, you accomplished something I never could. If I get through this speech, it’ll be the first time I actually finish something at Harvard. Class of 2017, congratulations!
I’m an unlikely speaker, not just because I dropped out, but because we’re technically in the same generation. We walked this yard less than a decade apart, studied the same ideas and slept through the same Ec10 lectures. We may have taken different paths to get here, especially if you came all the way from the Quad, but today I want to share what I’ve learned about our generation and the world we’re building together.
But first, the last couple of days have brought back a lot of good memories.
How many of you remember exactly what you were doing when you got that email telling you that you got into Harvard? I was playing Civilization and I ran downstairs, got my dad, and for some reason, his reaction was to video me opening the email. That could have been a really sad video. I swear getting into Harvard is still the thing my parents are most proud of me for.
What about your first lecture at Harvard? Mine was Computer Science 121 with the incredible Harry Lewis. I was late so I threw ona t-shirt and didn’t realize until afterwards it was inside out and backwards with my tag sticking out the front. I couldn’t figure out why no one would talk to me — except one guy, KX Jin, he just went with it. We ended up doing our problem sets together, and now he runs a big part of Facebook. And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be nice to people.
But my best memory from Harvard was meeting Priscilla. I had just launched this prank website Facemash, and the ad board wanted to “see me”. Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out. My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going away party. As luck would have it, Priscilla was at that party with her friend. We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: “I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly.”
Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.
I didn’t end up getting kicked out — I did that to myself. Priscilla and I started dating. And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn’t. But without Facemash I wouldn’t have met Priscilla, and she’s the most important person in my life, so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here.
We’ve all started lifelong friendships here, and some of us even families. That’s why I’m so grateful to this place. Thanks, Harvard.
Today I want to talk about purpose. But I’m not here to give you the standard commencement about finding your purpose. We’re millennials. We’ll try to do that instinctively. Instead, I’m here to tell you finding your purpose isn’t enough. The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
One of my favorite stories is when John F Kennedy visited the NASA space center, he saw a janitor carrying a broom and he walked over and asked what he was doing. The janitor responded: “Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon”.
Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for. Purpose is what creates true happiness.
You’re graduating at a time when this is especially important. When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community. But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs. Membership in communities is declining. Many people feel disconnected and depressed, and are trying to fill a void.
As I’ve traveled around, I’ve sat with children injuvenile detention and opioid addicts, who told me their lives could have turned out differently if they just had something to do, an after school program or somewhere to go. I’ve met factory workers who know their old jobs aren’t coming back and are trying to find their place.
To keep our society moving forward, we have agenerational challenge — to not only create new jobs, but create a renewedsense of purpose.
I remember the night I launched Facebook from my little dorm in Kirkland House. I went to Noch’s with my friend KX. I remember telling him I was excited to connect the Harvard community, but one day someone would connect the whole world.
The thing is, it never even occurred to me that someone might be us. We were just college kids. We didn’t know anything about that. There were all these big technology companies with resources. I just assumed one of them would do it. But this idea was so clear to us — that all people want to connect. So we just kept moving forward, day by day.
I know a lot of you will have your own stories just like this. A change in the world that seems so clear you’re sure someone else will do it. But they won’t. You will.
But it’s not enough to have purpose yourself. You have to create a sense of purpose for others.
I found that out the hard way. You see, my hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact. And as all these people started joining us, I just assumed that’s what they cared about too, so I never explained what I hoped we’d build.
A couple years in, some big companies wanted to buy us. I didn’t want to sell. I wanted to see if we could connect more people. We were building the first News Feed, and I thought if we could just launch this,it could change how we learn about the world.
Nearly everyone else wanted to sell. Without asense of higher purpose, this was the startup dream come true. It tore our company apart. After one tense argument, an advisor told me if I didn’t agree to sell, I would regret the decision for the rest of my life. Relationships were so frayed that within a year or so every single person on the management team was gone.
That was my hardest time leading Facebook. I believed in what we were doing, but I felt alone. And worse, it was my fault. I wondered if I was just wrong, an imposter, a 22 year-old kid who had no idea how the world worked.
Now, years later, I understand that *is* how things work with no sense of higher purpose. It’s up to us to create it so we can all keep moving forward together.
Today I want to talk about three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose: by taking on big meaningful projects together, by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose, and by building community across the world.
First, let’s take on big meaningful projects.
Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks. But we have the potential to do so much more together.
Every generation has its defining works. More than 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon – including that janitor. Millions of volunteers immunized children around the world against polio. Millions of more people built the Hoover dam and other great projects.
These projects didn’t just provide purpose for the people doing those jobs, they gave our whole country a sense of pride that we could do great things.
Now it’s our turn to do great things. I know, you’re probably thinking: I don’t know how to build a dam, or get a million people involved in anything.
But let me tell you a secret: no one does when they begin. Ideas don’t come out fully formed. They only become clear as you work on them. You just have to get started.
If I had to understand everything about connecting people before I began, I never would have started Facebook.
Movies and pop culture get this all wrong. The idea of a single eureka moment is a dangerous lie. It makes us feel inadequate since we haven’t had ours. It prevents people with seeds of good ideas from getting started. Oh, you know what else movies get wrong about innovation? No one writes math formulas on glass. That’s not a thing.
It’s good to be idealistic. But be prepared to be misunderstood. Anyone working on a big vision will get called crazy, even if you end up right. Anyone working on a complex problem will get blamed for not fully understanding the challenge, even though it’s impossible to know everything upfront. Anyone taking initiative will get criticized for moving too fast, because there’s always someone who wants to slow you down.
In our society, we often don’t do big things because we’re so afraid of making mistakes that we ignore all the things wrong today if we do nothing. The reality is, anything we do will have issues in the future. But that can’t keep us from starting.
So what are we waiting for? It’s time for ourgeneration-defining public works. How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet and getting millions of people involved manufacturing and installing solar panels? How about curing all diseases and asking volunteers to track their health data and share their genomes? Today we spend 50x more treating people who are sick than we spend finding cures so people don’t get sick in the first place. That makes no sense. We can fix this. How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online, and personalizing education so everyone can learn?
These achievements are within our reach. Let’s do them all in a way that gives everyone in our society a role. Let’s do big things, not only to create progress, but to create purpose.
So taking on big meaningful projects is the first thing we can do to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
The second is redefining equality to give everyone the freedom they need to pursue purpose.
Many of our parents had stable jobs throughout their careers. Now we’re all entrepreneurial, whether we’re starting projectsor finding or role. And that’s great. Our culture of entrepreneurship is how we create so much progress.
Now, an entrepreneurial culture thrives when it’s easy to try lots of new ideas. Facebook wasn’t the first thing I built. I also built games, chat systems, study tools and music players. I’m not alone. JK Rowling got rejected 12 times before publishing Harry Potter. Even Beyonce had to make hundreds of songs to get Halo. The greatest successes come from having the freedom to fail.
But today, we have a level of wealth inequality that hurts everyone. When you don’t have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise, we all lose. Right now our society is way over-indexed on rewarding success and we don’t do nearly enough to make it easy for everyone to take lots of shots.
Let’s face it. There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start abusiness.
Look, I know a lot of entrepreneurs, and I don’t know a single person who gave up on starting a business because they might not make enough money. But I know lots of people who haven’t pursued dreams because they didn’t have a cushion to fall back on if they failed.
We all know we don’t succeed just by having a good idea or working hard. We succeed by being lucky too. If I had to support my family growing up instead of having time to code, if I didn’t know I’d be fine if Facebook didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be standing here today. If we’re honest, we all know how much luck we’ve had.
Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation.
We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things. We’re going to change jobs many times, so we need affordable childcare to get to work and healthcare that aren’t tied to one company. We’re all going to make mistakes, so we need a society that focuses less on locking us up or stigmatizing us. And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.
And yes, giving everyone the freedom to pursue purpose isn’t free. People like me should pay for it. Many of you will do well and you should too.
That’s why Priscilla and I started the ChanZuckerberg Initiative and committed our wealth to promoting equal opportunity.These are the values of our generation. It was never a question of if we were going to do this. The only question was when.
Millennials are already one of the most charitable generations in history. In one year, three of four US millennials made adonation and seven out of ten raised money for charity.
But it’s not just about money. You can also give time. I promise you, if you take an hour or two a week — that’s all it takes togive someone a hand, to help them reach their potential.
Maybe you think that’s too much time. I used to. When Priscilla graduated from Harvard she became a teacher, and before she’d do education work with me, she told me I needed to teach a class. I complained: “Well, I’m kind of busy. I’m running this company.” But she insisted, so I taught a middle school program on entrepreneurship at the local Boys and Girls Club.
I taught them lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it’s like feeling targeted for your race and having a family member in prison. I shared stories from my time in school, and they shared their hope of one day going to college too. For five years now,I’ve been having dinner with those kids every month. One of them threw me and Priscilla our first baby shower. And next year they’re going to college. Everyone of them. First in their families.
We can all make time to give someone a hand. Let’s give everyone the freedom to pursue their purpose — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because when more people can turn their dreams into something great, we’re all better for it.
Purpose doesn’t only come from work. The third waywe can create a sense of purpose for everyone is by building community. And when our generation says “everyone”, we mean everyone in the world.
Quick show of hands: how many of you are from another country? Now, how many of you are friends with one of these folks? Nowwe’re talking. We have grown up connected.
In a survey asking millennials around the worldwhat defines our identity, the most popular answer wasn’t nationality, religionor ethnicity, it was “citizen of the world”. That’s a big deal.
Every generation expands the circle of people we consider “one of us”. For us, it now encompasses the entire world.
We understand the great arc of human history bends towards people coming together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to citiesto nations — to achieve things we couldn’t on our own.
We get that our greatest opportunities are now global — we can be the generation that ends poverty, that ends disease. We get that our greatest challenges need global responses too — no country can fight climate change alone or prevent pandemics. Progress now requires coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.
But we live in an unstable time. There are peopleleft behind by globalization across the world. It’s hard to care about peoplein other places if we don’t feel good about our lives here at home. There’s pressure to turn inwards.
This is the struggle of our time. The forces of freedom, openness and global community against the forces of authoritarianism,isolationism and nationalism. Forces for the flow of knowledge, trade andimmigration against those who would slow them down. This is not a battle of nations, it’s a battle of ideas. There are people in every country for global connection and good people against it.
This isn’t going to be decided at the UN either.It’s going to happen at the local level, when enough of us feel a sense of purpose and stability in our own lives that we can open up and start caringabout everyone. The best way to do that is to start building local communities right now.
We all get meaning from our communities. Whetherour communities are houses or sports teams, churches or music groups, they giveus that sense we are part of something bigger, that we are not alone; they giveus the strength to expand our horizons.
That’s why it’s so striking that for decades,membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter. That’s alot of people who now need to find purpose somewhere else.
But I know we can rebuild our communities and startnew ones because many of you already are.
I met Agnes Igoye, who’s graduating today. Whereare you, Agnes? She spent her childhood navigating conflict zones in Uganda,and now she trains thousands of law enforcement officers to keep communitiessafe.
I met Kayla Oakley and Niha Jain, graduating today,too. Stand up. Kayla and Niha started a non-profit that connects peoplesuffering from illnesses with people in their communities willing to help.
I met David Razu Aznar, graduating from the KennedySchool today. David, stand up. He’s a former city councilor who successfullyled the battle to make Mexico City the first Latin American city to passmarriage equality — even before San Francisco.
This is my story too. A student in a dorm room,connecting one community at a time, and keeping at it until one day we connect the whole world.
Change starts local. Even global changes startsmall — with people like us. In our generation, the struggle of whether weconnect more, whether we achieve our biggest opportunities, comes down to this— your ability to build communities and create a world where every singleperson has a sense of purpose.
Class of 2017, you are graduating into a world thatneeds purpose. It’s up to you to create it.
Now, you may be thinking: can I really do this?
Remember when I told you about that class I taughtat the Boys and Girls Club? One day after class I was talking to them aboutcollege, and one of my top students raised his hand and said he wasn’t sure hecould go because he’s undocumented. He didn’t know if they’d let him in.
Last year I took him out to breakfast for hisbirthday. I wanted to get him a present, so I asked him and he started talkingabout students he saw struggling and said “You know, I’d really just like abook on social justice.”
I was blown away. Here’s a young guy who has everyreason to be cynical. He didn’t know if the country he calls home — the onlyone he’s known — would deny him his dream of going to college. But he wasn’tfeeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t even thinking of himself. He has a greatersense of purpose, and he’s going to bring people along with him.
It says something about our current situation thatI can’t even say his name because I don’t want to put him at risk. But if ahigh school senior who doesn’t know what the future holds can do his part tomove the world forward, then we owe it to the world to do our part too.
Before you walk out those gates one last time, aswe sit in front of Memorial Church, I am reminded of a prayer, Mi Shebeirach,that I say whenever I face a challenge, that I sing to my daughter thinkingabout her future when I tuck her into bed. It goes:
“May the source of strength, who blessed the onesbefore us, help us *find the courage* to make our lives a blessing.”
I hope you find the courage to make your life ablessing.
Congratulations, Class of ’17! Good luck out there.
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