GRADS GET LESSON FOR LIFE

’Tis the season for commencement addresses, a ritual marked too often by vacuous speeches given by minor celebrities hired as philosophers for a day. They, and the students and families forced to listen to their rehearsed banalities, should take a seat and watch online or read the text of the truly great commencement address given by Adm. Will McRaven at the University of Texas.

As head of the US Operations Command, McRaven, a former SEAL commander, led the mission to get Osama bin Laden, but his “suggestions” amount to a universal guide to surviving and thriving in any circumstance.

Success starts with making your bed — seriously. As he put it, “If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

His lessons are drawn from the grinding training that SEALS undergo. The aim is to find the best by weeding out those who can’t endure the psychological and physical pain in a process that basically condenses life’s most extreme challenges to six months of hell.

Each of McRaven’s examples was a gem, but I was especially struck by the “sugar cookie” experience. He describes a training exercise designed to punish every cadet for next to no reason, just to see which ones can endure instructors’ brutal unfairness.

Personally, I will try to remind myself of that one the next time I’m stuck in New York traffic. Then again, the idiocy of gridlock caused by bureaucrats may be more than even a SEAL can endure.