Have Courage, Face Reality

Class of 2026: Congratulations! 

Of the many pieces of advice a commencement speaker might impart, I think the most important one is this: stay connected to reality. 

This is a more difficult task than you might think. Reality can be deeply painful, and there will be many temptations to run from it. 

When I was growing up in Africa and the Middle East, I lived in uncertain and often dangerous circumstances. Hardship was universal. My life, and the lives of everyone I knew, were touched by war, poverty, disease, famine, and disorder. Our reality was brutal. 

The temptation we all faced was to run from that reality — to give away our minds to strongmen, false prophets, and radical ideologies. We were encouraged to channel the pain of our reality into tribal and religious enmities. But these were just coping mechanisms, ways to run from a reality that felt hopelessly difficult. 

Ironically, you face the same challenge — running from reality — but from the totally opposite perspective. Whereas my life was surrounded by chaos, your life is surrounded by comfort. For you, real poverty is virtually non-existent. Physical danger is barely a concern. 

But you are not free from psychological danger, and this can also be perilous. 

Boredom and anxiety are your enemies. As you struggle to find your purpose in life — something we all must do — you will be tempted not to run from your reality, as I was, but to go to war with it, to attack the very institutions that make your life so comfortable. You will be drawn to a counter-cultural cause that you think will give your life meaning. But this is a false god. 

Bad actors will seek to take advantage of this and attempt to control your mind—to buy your attention, to win your loyalty, to influence you—by confirming the worst doubts you have ever had about yourself, your family, and your country. 

Friends, teachers, and “influencers” will encourage you to reimagine your good fortune as “privilege.” They want you to be ashamed of your cultural inheritance so that you will willingly give it up. 

At the same time, they will urge you to dwell on times you have “suffered” and to see yourself as a victim of injustice, insensitivity, and inequality; to reject the love and guidance of your parents, your family traditions, and your heritage and to escape from reality by finding meaning in destruction. 

Do not give in to these temptations. 

Stay anchored in reality. 

In reality, the life upon which you are embarking—the opportunities afforded to you by growing up in the United States, by receiving an education, by being young in the 21st century — is one of tremendous promise. Your inheritance is a political, legal, and social order that has afforded more prosperity and more freedom for more people than at any other time or place in history. 

These opportunities come with responsibilities. Here is where you will find your true purpose. The therapeutic culture wants to coddle you, to encourage you to blame someone else for your problems—the government or billionaires or whomever.

It’s a way of deflecting the responsibility you have to pass on to future generations the great gifts of Western Civilization: The Holy Scripture, Shakespeare, the American Constitution.

The order, stability, and prosperity of modern American life is fragile. It’s natural and easy to take it for granted. You should not. It is being attacked and eroded from all sides by those who would convince you to rebel against your heritage and homeland and tear down its institutions. 

You must defend this heritage, so that America can continue to be a haven for you and the families you will create as well as be a beacon for the world. 

There will be many people who will encourage you to think of yourselves as children well into your 20s—to use “adult” as a verb, and to defer milestones such as marriage and family in order to “make the most” of your youth. Do not listen to them. 

The Founders of your country took on the responsibility of building this nation when they were your age. At the time of the American Revolution James Madison was 25; Alexander Hamilton was 21; Lafayette 19. They didn’t fear the future and responsibility; they embraced it. 

My challenge for you is to face reality. Work hard, take responsibility, and make real sacrifices. Pursue greatness and know that greatness comes at a cost. And when you look around and see that something needs doing—when you think to yourself “someone should fix that” or “someone should defend that person”—I am here to tell you that that someone is you.

I’m Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Founder of the AHA Foundation, for Prager University.