Blazing singer, songwriter, producer, director, actress, influential advocate for artist rights and a philanthropist Taylor Swift was conferred upon an honorary doctorate of fine arts from New York University(NYU). The 11 time Grammy winner was selected as a commencement speaker for NYU Class of 2022. She gave a list of hacks for navigating life, love, pressure, hope and friendship.
Express gratitude for all steps and missteps, that have helped you to reach your destination. You should be satisfied with what you have achieved. Never crave for more. Greed is unhealthy.
No one is qualified to tell you what to do or what not to. You have to work, struggle and sacrifice to achieve your dream. Life can be heavy if you think about carrying it all at once. Moving forward with life is about catch and release. This implies knowing what things to keep and what to release. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Good things in life are lighter anywhere thereby, providing more room for them. You have to pick what your life has time and room for. And your choice defines your priorities.
Do not veil your enthusiasm for the silliest things. Never be ashamed of trying. Perfection doesn’t exist. We are all writers, writers inspired by different situations. The ambiguity of life is “its totally upto you”. Mistake doesn’t equal to failures. Gathering our embarrassments together leads to confidence. There is nothing wrong in spending time with yourself alone rather than minute by minute of social devaluation.
In your life you will inevitably misspeak, trust wrong person, under-react, over-react, hurt people, overthink, self-sabotage, create a pseudo-reality, feel guilty, hit rock bottom; pause ,rinse and repeat. Mistakes lead to loosing things and gaining things. Every new choice opens a new room of ideas, struggles and dreams. Just remember “you are on your own now”. We are led by our gut instincts, intuitions, our desires, our fears, our scars and our dreams. We may screw up sometimes. But we will recover. We will learn from them and grow resiliently.
Her fellow mates termed her as a genuine sweetheart. Taylor swift had earlier said Ed Sheeran looked down on her because he had an honorary doctorate but she didn’t. This was something that she had been wanting for years and finally got it.