some inspiration

one of my good friends was reading a commencement speech and thought to send it to me as he was reading it. i talk a lot with my friends about making sure to continue to challenge ourselves and put ourselves in uncomfortable situations in order to grow as a person. i wish i could make a list (even more so KNEW) of set ways to make us grow as human beings so we continue to mold and change the world and ourselves for the better. it was refreshing and inspiring to wake up to this email in the morning...

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was the commencement speaker at BC Law this year, when I was reading his speech there was part that reminded me of you:

Our lack of control over what happens to us might be grounds for an attitude of resignation or fatalism, but I would urge you to take a very different lesson.  You may have limited control over the challenges and opportunities you will face, or the good fortune and trials that you will experience.  You have considerably more control, however, over how well prepared and open you are, personally and professionally, to make the most of the opportunities that life provides you.  Any time that you challenge yourself to undertake something worthwhile but difficult, a little out of your comfort zone--or any time that you put yourself in a position that challenges your preconceived sense of your own limits--you increase your capacity to make the most of the unexpected opportunities with which you will inevitably be presented.  Or, to borrow another aphorism, this one from Louis Pasteur:  "Chance favors the prepared mind."