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Josh Clark's Speech from Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020 · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year,
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  Speaker 1: high speed Internet and compatible device. Content varies by package
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  Speaker 1: and location restriction supply. Commencement Speeches for the Class of
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  Speaker 1: twenty is a production of I Heart Radio. Class of Parents, Faculty,
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  Speaker 1: rising graduates. Welcome to commencement. You made it. This year
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  Speaker 1: is a little different at difficult time to graduate because
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  Speaker 1: the traditional graduation day has been put on hold, So
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  Speaker 1: we're bringing it to you wherever you are because this
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  Speaker 1: is still your day, your moments, and now put your
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  Speaker 1: hands together. It's time to be inspired. This year's commencement
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  Speaker 1: speaker the one and only Josh Clark. Dear students, congratulations
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  Speaker 1: on reaching this point in your life. It's a big
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  Speaker 1: deal and you should be proud of yourself now that
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  Speaker 1: you've gotten here. I've come to fill you in on
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  Speaker 1: a little secret you've been told for practically your whole life.
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  Speaker 1: Now how special you are, how singularly important you are,
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  Speaker 1: how packed with uniqueness you are. And that is true.
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  Speaker 1: You are special and unique and you are important. But
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  Speaker 1: your parents and teachers haven't been telling you the whole
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  Speaker 1: truth all of your life. They've only been showing you
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  Speaker 1: a part of the bigger picture. Surely you've noticed of
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  Speaker 1: this throughout the time that you were in school, Like
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  Speaker 1: when you got older and suddenly the stories in history
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  Speaker 1: class began to get a lot darker. They told you
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  Speaker 1: all those same stories when you were younger. They just
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  Speaker 1: arranged the picture without all of the pieces to keep
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  Speaker 1: you from truly understanding. And perhaps you resented it when
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  Speaker 1: you realize the whole truth have been kept from you.
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  Speaker 1: That's understandable. Most of us do feel that way. But
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  Speaker 1: don't waste your time stewing on this. Each generation does
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  Speaker 1: it to the next. They think it protects the young,
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  Speaker 1: when really it just keeps things as they are. The
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  Speaker 1: important thing here is to learn from that experience, because
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  Speaker 1: people are going to continue to do this to you
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  Speaker 1: your whole life. People will try to lay out the
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  Speaker 1: pieces of the truth that fit together to make the
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  Speaker 1: picture they want you to see. It's a way to
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  Speaker 1: get people to do what you want them to, and
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  Speaker 1: throughout your life you will get this from all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of people. People you're friends with, people you love, people
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  Speaker 1: on television, people on the internet, people running your government,
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  Speaker 1: people running other people's governments. Your actions and your thoughts
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  Speaker 1: are powerful and influential, and people want to sway them.
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  Speaker 1: This means that you will have to learn to think
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  Speaker 1: for yourself, do your own research, seek out people who
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  Speaker 1: are experts on the topic, talk to other people. In
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  Speaker 1: this day and age, it's not enough to trust your
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  Speaker 1: eyes or your ears. You have to put in work
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  Speaker 1: to find the truth. Don't be lazy. Find the truth.
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  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily what's on the news. It's also not
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  Speaker 1: necessarily what's in some video that says the news is lying.
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  Speaker 1: Always remember this. Whatever someone is showing you, they're probably
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  Speaker 1: only showing you part of the picture. It's up to
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  Speaker 1: you to fill in the rest of the pieces that
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  Speaker 1: make up the whole truth. And maybe you'll never find it.
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  Speaker 1: That's okay. It would be exhausting to spend your life
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  Speaker 1: constantly search for the truth, constantly paranoid that every person
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  Speaker 1: you speak to is manipulating you. Don't do that. That's
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  Speaker 1: not what life is about, and people aren't that mean
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  Speaker 1: at their core. Most people don't even realize they're showing
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  Speaker 1: you an incomplete picture, and usually they're not doing it
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  Speaker 1: for nefarious purposes when they do. Instead, the vast majority
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  Speaker 1: of people are just passing along an incomplete picture that
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  Speaker 1: someone else showed them. This happens a lot. It's a
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  Speaker 1: big problem. So to keep from dying of exhaustion by
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  Speaker 1: age thirty all haggard and paranoid and upset, do two things.
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  Speaker 1: One decide if something is important enough to you or
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  Speaker 1: the world to search out the missing pieces to find
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  Speaker 1: the truth of the matter. Sometimes all it takes is
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  Speaker 1: an effective Google search and taking the time to read
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  Speaker 1: a couple of reliable articles. But remember that even if
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  Speaker 1: you do search high and low, you may never find
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  Speaker 1: the truth about whatever it is you're trying to understand.
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  Speaker 1: So it better be important if you're going to go
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  Speaker 1: looking for the truth of a matter. And two, if
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  Speaker 1: it's not important, shrug it off. You will never know everything.
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  Speaker 1: You'll never know most things. Some things will be important
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  Speaker 1: enough for you to search for most will not be.
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  Speaker 1: But if you decide it's not that important, then and
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  Speaker 1: this is really important, don't pass along the incomplete picture
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  Speaker 1: to others. When you do that, you are shaping someone
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  Speaker 1: else's view of things. They trust you. They know you're
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  Speaker 1: a good person with the good of the world at heart,
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  Speaker 1: so why would you lie throughout your life? People will
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  Speaker 1: listen to what comes out of your mouth, So be
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  Speaker 1: careful that you believe in what you say. But back
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  Speaker 1: to what I was saying before about your parents and
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  Speaker 1: teachers giving you an incomplete picture. I hope you understand
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  Speaker 1: a little better now that they don't mean any harm
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  Speaker 1: by it. They might think they were protecting you all
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  Speaker 1: these years by keeping ugly truths from you. But those
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  Speaker 1: ugly truths, hard as they can be to take, are
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  Speaker 1: what allow us to grow as people. If you see
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful flower, you admire it and are glad that
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  Speaker 1: it's there. If you see a weed growing, though, you
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  Speaker 1: pull it. But if the people around you are telling
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  Speaker 1: you that the weed you're seeing is actually a flower,
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to know otherwise, and it's even harder to
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  Speaker 1: know that the weeds should be pulled. Remember that your
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  Speaker 1: parents and your teachers weren't lying to you because they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to deceive you. Their parents and their teachers showed
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  Speaker 1: them pictures of weeds that grow in our world and
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  Speaker 1: told them that they were flowers too, And their parents, parents,
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  Speaker 1: and their teachers teachers told them some weeds have been
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  Speaker 1: called flowers for so long that no matter what you
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  Speaker 1: say to some people, they will fight you tooth and
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  Speaker 1: nail that the weed is a flower. That's their truth,
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  Speaker 1: and people are deeply protective of what they hold to
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  Speaker 1: be true, even when it's not true at all. Part
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  Speaker 1: of the reason they'll fight and argue with you when
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  Speaker 1: you tell them a flower is actually a weed is
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  Speaker 1: just simple laziness. It takes a lot more effort to
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  Speaker 1: pull a weed than it does to pretend it's a flower.
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  Speaker 1: But the bigger reason they'll argue is because they don't
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  Speaker 1: want to believe they've been wrong all this time. The
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  Speaker 1: thing is, no matter how long everyone's called a weed
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  Speaker 1: a flower, there's some aspects to a weed that a
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  Speaker 1: flower doesn't have that will always give a weed away,
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  Speaker 1: like hurting people. If something that people you know say
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  Speaker 1: is a flower harms other people, it's really a weed.
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  Speaker 1: Weeds can hurt people in all kinds of ways. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: they give rights to some people but not to others.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe they make it so some people have more wealth
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  Speaker 1: and power than they could ever possibly use, while other
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  Speaker 1: people have so little they can't barely scrape by other
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  Speaker 1: Weeds make it so that when some people hurt other
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  Speaker 1: people or other life or the play in it, they
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  Speaker 1: don't get in trouble for it. If you suspect a
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  Speaker 1: flower is really a weed, and you look at it
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  Speaker 1: closely enough, you'll see that the people who say it's
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  Speaker 1: a flower are the ones who get all the benefits
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  Speaker 1: from it. And you'll also find there's a whole other
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  Speaker 1: group of people out there who've been calling it a
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  Speaker 1: weed all this time. It's just that nobody's listened to them.
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  Speaker 1: And sometimes it's even worse than that. Sometimes those people
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  Speaker 1: are told that their own flowers are weeds. So what
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  Speaker 1: does all of this have to do with you being
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  Speaker 1: special and unique? Excellent question, And actually that's the whole
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  Speaker 1: point of everything. It's not a lie that you are
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  Speaker 1: special and unique. You are both of those things, but
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  Speaker 1: not simply because you're you, as you've been led to
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  Speaker 1: believe all these years. That's an incomplete picture of the
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  Speaker 1: whole truth. You are special and unique because you were
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  Speaker 1: born a human being. All human beings are special and unique,
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  Speaker 1: not just as individuals, but the whole human race. Every
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  Speaker 1: one of us is special. Every one of us is unique,
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  Speaker 1: and the same goes not just for human beings but
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  Speaker 1: for all living things. Life is special, and in this way,
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  Speaker 1: every single person that you will ever meet in your
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  Speaker 1: entire life is as valuable and worthwhile as you are.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these other people you'll meet, we'll disagree with you,
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  Speaker 1: and some of them may harm you. Just because a
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  Speaker 1: person is unique and special doesn't mean that they're good.
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  Speaker 1: But as hard as it can be to remember, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: never forget that, on the whole, human beings are generally good.
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  Speaker 1: They generally care about each other, they generally want what's best,
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  Speaker 1: and most just don't forget that humanity is generally good.
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  Speaker 1: It's just that sometimes other people don't recognize a flower
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  Speaker 1: is really a weed. You can find a reflection of
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  Speaker 1: incredible commencement addresses from all your favorite speakers at the
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  Speaker 1: Commencement Podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen
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  Speaker 1: to podcasts.