I don't know what it is about commencement speeches but they tend to provide the best life advice. I think it has to do with the presenters: they’re asked to look back some twenty-odd years over their (successful) lives and, with perfect hindsight, provide that tidbit of wisdom that allowed them to succeed.

JK Rowling’s Harvard commencement (via kottke) is one of those. While her second part (for the good of humanity) fell on uninterested ears, her first part didn’t. She spoke of perseverance. How she lost everything, was in the pit of depression and poverty, and discovered something that they never teach you: failure is not terrible. This understanding was what propelled her to write Harry Potter. It's always the fear of failure that is the horrible beast (the adages aren't always wrong).

Now, if only I wasn't that coward she described:

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

If in ten years, I look back and, having followed her advice in the first part, see the second part of her speech as meaningful as the first, then I can say that I've not only found success, but I've learned to be successful as a person.