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Overnight Taylor Swift received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa) from New York University as part of the graduating 2022 class. It comes as no surprise that the Grammy-award winning singer was tasked with presenting the Commencement speech (because who else?) which she delivered from Yankee Stadium.
“I’m 90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ’22,'” Swift joked. She continued, explaining she did not want to offer “unsolicited advice” but rather offered a few “life hacks” she wish she knew at the beginning of her career.
“The first of which is … life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once,” she continued. “Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started,” she shared. “Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.”
The next advice was to “live alongside the cringe”. “Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime,” Swift noted.
“For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife,” referring to her “RED” era. “But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun,” she joked.
On a more serious note she spoke to her life in the limelight, seemingly referring to how she likes to keep her private life (including with beau Joe Alwyn) private.
“Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and 20s, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely,” she shared.
Swift later concluded, “I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway, hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.”
To watch the full speech from about 2:51:00.
