‘My son, I wish you failure, bad luck’
i n june 2017, the us supreme court chief justice john roberts delivered the inaugural speech at his son’s ninth-grade graduation ceremony. he said, “from time to time in the years to come, i hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will know the value of justice. i hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. i am sorry to say that, but i really hope from time to time you feel loneliness, so that you do not take the friendships of others for granted. i wish you face misfortune once in a while, conscientiously realizing the role of opportunities in your life and understand that your success is not inevitable, and the failure of others is not inevitable as well. and when you lose, as you will from time to time, i hope your opponent will gloat over your failure. it is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. i hope you will be ignored so that you know the importance of listening to others. i hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. whether i wish these things or not, they are going to happen. whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes. now the inaugural speakers are also expected to give some advice. they give great advice, and some useful tips. the most common great advice they give is for you to be yourself. i fully agree with that, p r o v i d e d that we are perfect. since we are not, we should try to become someone better than what we are. the greek philosopher socrates said, “an experimentfree life is not worth living”. even though “just do it” might be a good motto for some things, it is not a good motto when you are trying to figure out how to live your life”. the venerable judge ended his speech with the lyrics of the song “forever young” by bob dylan, the singer who won the nobel prize laureate of literature for the spirit and lyrics of his distinctive songs. these words as part of the song “forever young” — “may your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung, and may you stay forever young” the speech was beautiful and full of smart tips and beautiful examples. you can hear the speech in this following link — http://time.com/4845150/ chief-justice-john-roberts-commentement-speech-transcript/ please note - in an article titled “palestine … we are coming to you”, i had written that the singer siham rifki is of syrian origin. however, my friend mustafa al-jindi said she is lebanese, and her name is siham al-qassab. he said she is the sister of ahmed salem al-qassab, a well-known media man in kuwait in the 1960s and the first news anchor on kuwait tv channel.
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