Despite...the heartfelt wishes, the stirring rhetoric about how my kid and her classmates should be true to themselves...and how they should stand up for what’s right, and honor their best selves, and become lifelong learners, and never, ever let anyone tell them they “can’t,” the plain fact is that my kid is utterly screwed, as is everyone in her class. And so, dear candidates, are you. It’s not your fault. It’s ours. Mine, your professors, your parents, your grandparents. All of us. We let you down.* And not just a little bit. We totally, and perhaps irrevocably, blew it. I’m not sure there’s an actual phrase strong enough to convey just how bad it is, the hell storm you’re about to waltz into....

Your elders inherited a pretty okay planet overall — not perfect by any means, but halfway decent. Totally workable. And a few decades later, it’s time to pass on this glorious birthright, a precious heirloom handed down century after century since time immemorial, and, um, what can I say?

You kids are in some real trouble.

A lot of you are thinking about what comes next, about how you’ll find your purpose in life. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be a problem. Your purpose is about to find you.

As I look out there at your shining faces, your bright eyes so full of innocence and hope, I wish it were otherwise. You have your whole lives ahead of you. The possibilities should be endless, as they were for me and my class a few decades ago.

Instead, you’re about to confront a set of challenges my generation couldn’t even conceive of, or more accurately, simply preferred not to. *Even the supposed environmentalists, dutifully separating our recyclables and carrying our reusable totes to the store, we didn’t really act, not in any meaningful way.

And so here’s the kicker. Even as we lay this mess at your feet, we mock you relentlessly...The truth is that we’re jealous of you and we always have been. We’re jealous of ... your ability to take good selfies...

And I suspect that one day, we will come to envy your courage. We will look on with awe as you lead the rest of us in facing up to an overwhelming challenge. We will watch with wonder as you confront the disaster we’ve helped bring about, and do it with grace, and humility, and wisdom, and empathy. And as grim as the challenge is, I think you may also find joy in it . It will bring your lives meaning of a sort most of us have never felt.