1
UNIVERSITY
OF
CALIFORNIA,
BERKELEY
2016
Commencement
Address
May
14
th
,
2016
Sheryl
Sandberg
Thank
you,
Marie.
And
thank
you
esteemed
members
of
the
faculty,
proud
parents,
devoted
friends,
squirming
siblings.
Congratulations
to
all
of
you…and
especially
to
the
magnificent
Berkeley
graduating
class
of
2016!
It
is
a
privilege
to
be
here
at
Berkeley,
which
has
produced
so
many
Nobel
Prize
winners,
Turing
Award
winners,
astronauts,
members
of
Congress,
Olympic
gold
medalists….
and
that’s
just
the
women!
Berkeley
has
always
been
ahead
of
the
times.
In
the
1960s,
you
led
the
Free
Speech
Movement.
Back
in
those
days,
people
used
to
say
that
with
all
the
long
hair,
how
do
we
even
tell
the
boys
from
the
girls?
We
now
know
the
answer:
manbuns.
Early
on,
Berkeley
opened
its
doors
to
the
entire
population.
When
this
campus
opened
in
1873,
the
class
included
167
men
and
222
women.
It
took
my
alma
mater
another
ninety
years
to
award
a
single
degree
to
a
single
woman.
One
of
the
women
who
came
here
in
search
of
opportunity
was
Rosalind
Nuss.
Roz
grew
up
scrubbing
floors
in
the
Brooklyn
boardinghouse
where
she
lived.
She
was
pulled
out
of
high
school
by
her
parents
to
help
support
their
family.
One
of
her
teachers
insisted
that
her
parents
put
her
back
into
school—and
in
1937,
she
sat
where
you
are
sitting
today
and
received
a
Berkeley
degree.
Roz
was
my
grandmother.
She
was
a
huge
inspiration
to
me
and
I’m
so
grateful
that
Berkeley
recognized
her
potential.
I
want
to
take
a
moment
to
offer
a
special
congratulations
to
the
many
here
today
who
are
the
first
generation
in
their
families
to
graduate
from
college.
What
a
remarkable
achievement.
Today
is
a
day
of
celebration.
A
day
to
celebrate
all
the
hard
work
that
got
you
to
this
moment.
Today
is
a
day
of
thanks.
A
day
to
thank
those
who
helped
you
get
here—nurtured
you,
taught
you,
cheered
you
on,
and
dried
your
tears.
Or
at
least
the
ones
who
didn’t
draw
on
you
with
a
Sharpie
when
you
fell
asleep
at
a
party.
Today
is
a
day
of
reflection.
Because
today
marks
the
end
of
one
era
of
your
life
and
the
beginning
of
something
new.
A
commencement
address
is
meant
to
be
a
dance
between
youth
and
wisdom.
You
have
the
youth.
Someone
comes
in
to
be
the
voice
of
wisdom—that’s
supposed
to
be
me.
I
stand
up
here
and
tell
you
all
the
things
I
have
learned
in
life,
you
throw
your
cap
in
the
air,
you
let
your
2
family
take
a
million
photos
–don’t
forget
to
post
them
on
Instagram
—and
everyone
goes
home
happy.
Today
will
be
a
bit
different.
We
will
still
do
the
caps
and
you
still
have
to
do
the
photos.
But
I
am
not
here
to
tell
you
all
the
things
I’ve
learned
in
life.
Today
I
will
try
to
tell
you
what
I
learned
in
death.
I
have
never
spoken
publicly
about
this
before.
It’s
hard.
But
I
will
do
my
very
best
not
to
blow
my
nose
on
this
beautiful
Berkeley
robe.
One
year
and
thirteen
days
ago,
I
lost
my
husband,
Dave.
His
death
was
sudden
and
unexpected.
We
were
at
a
friend’s
fiftieth
birthday
party
in
Mexico.
I
took
a
nap.
Dave
went
to
work
out.
What
followed
was
the
unthinkable—walking
into
a
gym
to
find
him
lying
on
the
floor.
Flying
home
to
tell
my
children
that
their
father
was
gone.
Watching
his
casket
being
lowered
into
the
ground.
For
many
months
afterward,
and
at
many
times
since,
I
was
swallowed
up
in
the
deep
fog
of
grief—what
I
think
of
as
the
void—an
emptiness
that
fills
your
heart,
your
lungs,
constricts
your
ability
to
think
or
even
to
breathe.
Dave’s
death
changed
me
in
very
profound
ways.
I
learned
about
the
depths
of
sadness
and
the
brutality
of
loss.
But
I
also
learned
that
when
life
sucks
you
under,
you
can
kick
against
the
bottom,
break
the
surface,
and
breathe
again.
I
learned
that
in
the
face
of
the
void—or
in
the
face
of
any
challenge—you
can
choose
joy
and
meaning.
I’m
sharing
this
with
you
in
the
hopes
that
today,
as
you
take
the
next
step
in
your
life,
you
can
learn
the
lessons
that
I
only
learned
in
death.
Lessons
about
hope,
strength,
and
the
light
within
us
that
will
not
be
extinguished.
Everyone
who
has
made
it
through
Cal
has
already
experienced
some
disappointment.
You
wanted
an
A
but
you
got
a
B.
OK,
let’s
be
honest—you
got
an
A-‐
but
you’re
still
mad.
You
applied
for
an
internship
at
Facebook,
but
you
only
got
one
from
Google.
She
was
the
love
of
your
life…
but
then
she
swiped
left.
Game
of
Thrones
the
show
has
diverged
way
too
much
from
the
books—and
you
bothered
to
read
all
four
thousand
three
hundred
and
fifty-‐two
pages.
You
will
almost
certainly
face
more
and
deeper
adversity.
There’s
loss
of
opportunity:
the
job
that
doesn’t
work
out,
the
illness
or
accident
that
changes
everything
in
an
instant.
There’s
loss
of
dignity:
the
sharp
sting
of
prejudice
when
it
happens.
There’s
loss
of
love:
the
broken
relationships
that
can’t
be
fixed.
And
sometimes
there’s
loss
of
life
itself.
Some
of
you
have
already
experienced
the
kind
of
tragedy
and
hardship
that
leave
an
indelible
mark.
Last
year,
Radhika,
the
winner
of
the
University
Medal,
spoke
so
beautifully
about
the
sudden
loss
of
her
mother.
3
The
question
is
not
if
some
of
these
things
will
happen
to
you.
They
will.
Today
I
want
to
talk
about
what
happens
next.
About
the
things
you
can
do
to
overcome
adversity,
no
matter
what
form
it
takes
or
when
it
hits
you.
The
easy
days
ahead
of
you
will
be
easy.
It
is
the
hard
days—
the
times
that
challenge
you
to
your
very
core—that
will
determine
who
you
are.
You
will
be
defined
not
just
by
what
you
achieve,
but
by
how
you
survive.
A
few
weeks
after
Dave
died,
I
was
talking
to
my
friend
Phil
about
a
father-‐son
activity
that
Dave
was
not
here
to
do.
We
came
up
with
a
plan
to
fill
in
for
Dave.
I
cried
to
him,
“But
I
want
Dave.”
Phil
put
his
arm
around
me
and
said,
“Option
A
is
not
available.
So
let’s
just
kick
the
shit
out
of
option
B.”
We
all
at
some
point
live
some
form
of
option
B.
The
question
is:
What
do
we
do
then?
As
a
representative
of
Silicon
Valley,
I’m
pleased
to
tell
you
there
is
data
to
learn
from.
After
spending
decades
studying
how
people
deal
with
setbacks,
psychologist
Martin
Seligman
found
that
there
are
three
P’s—personalization,
pervasiveness,
and
permanence—that
are
critical
to
how
we
bounce
back
from
hardship.
The
seeds
of
resilience
are
planted
in
the
way
we
process
the
negative
events
in
our
lives.
The
first
P
is
personalization—the
belief
that
we
are
at
fault.
This
is
different
from
taking
responsibility,
which
you
should
always
do.
This
is
the
lesson
that
not
everything
that
happens
to
us
happens
because
of
us.
When
Dave
died,
I
had
a
very
common
reaction,
which
was
to
blame
myself.
He
died
in
seconds
from
a
cardiac
arrhythmia.
I
poured
over
his
medical
records
asking
what
I
could
have—or
should
have—done.
It
wasn’t
until
I
learned
about
the
three
P’s
that
I
accepted
that
I
could
not
have
prevented
his
death.
His
doctors
had
not
identified
his
coronary
artery
disease.
I
was
an
economics
major;
how
could
I
have?
Studies
show
that
getting
past
personalization
can
actually
make
you
stronger.
Teachers
who
knew
they
could
do
better
after
students
failed
adjusted
their
methods
and
saw
future
classes
go
on
to
excel.
College
swimmers
who
underperformed
but
believed
they
were
capable
of
swimming
faster
did.
Not
taking
failures
personally
allows
us
to
recover—and
even
to
thrive.
The
second
P
is
pervasiveness—the
belief
that
an
event
will
affect
all
areas
of
your
life.
You
know
that
song
“Everything
is
awesome?”
This
is
the
flip:
“Everything
is
awful.”
There’s
no
place
to
run
or
hide
from
the
all-‐consuming
sadness.
The
child
psychologists
I
spoke
to
encouraged
me
to
get
my
kids
back
to
their
routine
as
soon
as
possible.
So
ten
days
after
Dave
died,
they
went
back
to
school
and
I
went
back
to
work.
I
remember
sitting
in
my
first
Facebook
meeting
in
a
deep,
deep
haze.
All
I
could
think
was,
“What
is
everyone
talking
about
and
how
could
this
possibly
matter?”
But
then
I
got
drawn
into
the
discussion
and
for
a
second—a
brief
split
second—I
forgot
about
death.
4
That
brief
second
helped
me
see
that
there
were
other
things
in
my
life
that
were
not
awful.
My
children
and
I
were
healthy.
My
friends
and
family
were
so
loving
and
they
carried
us—
quite
literally
at
times.
The
loss
of
a
partner
often
has
severe
negative
financial
consequences,
especially
for
women.
So
many
single
mothers—and
fathers—struggle
to
make
ends
meet
or
have
jobs
that
don’t
allow
them
the
time
they
need
to
care
for
their
children.
I
had
financial
security,
the
ability
to
take
the
time
off
I
needed,
and
a
job
that
I
did
not
just
believe
in,
but
where
it’s
actually
OK
to
spend
all
day
on
Facebook.
Gradually,
my
children
started
sleeping
through
the
night,
crying
less,
playing
more.
The
third
P
is
permanence—the
belief
that
the
sorrow
will
last
forever.
For
months,
no
matter
what
I
did,
it
felt
like
the
crushing
grief
would
always
be
there.
We
often
project
our
current
feelings
out
indefinitely—and
experience
what
I
think
of
as
the
second
derivative
of
those
feelings.
We
feel
anxious—and
then
we
feel
anxious
that
we’re
anxious.
We
feel
sad—and
then
we
feel
sad
that
we’re
sad.
Instead,
we
should
accept
our
feelings—but
recognize
that
they
will
not
last
forever.
My
rabbi
told
me
that
time
would
heal
but
for
now
I
should
“lean
in
to
the
suck.”
It
was
good
advice,
but
not
really
what
I
meant
by
“lean
in.”
None
of
you
need
me
to
explain
the
fourth
P…which
is,
of
course,
pizza
from
Cheese
Board.
But
I
wish
I
had
known
about
the
three
P’s
when
I
was
your
age.
There
were
so
many
times
these
lessons
would
have
helped.
Day
one
of
my
first
job
out
of
college,
my
boss
found
out
that
I
didn’t
know
how
to
enter
data
into
Lotus
1-‐2-‐3.
That’s
a
spreadsheet—ask
your
parents.
His
mouth
dropped
open
and
he
said,
‘I
can’t
believe
you
got
this
job
without
knowing
that”—and
then
walked
out
of
the
room.
I
went
home
convinced
that
I
was
going
to
be
fired.
I
thought
I
was
terrible
at
everything…
but
it
turns
out
I
was
only
terrible
at
spreadsheets.
Understanding
pervasiveness
would
have
saved
me
a
lot
of
anxiety
that
week.
I
wish
I
had
known
about
permanence
when
I
broke
up
with
boyfriends.
It
would’ve
been
a
comfort
to
know
that
feeling
was
not
going
to
last
forever,
and
if
I
was
being
honest
with
myself…
neither
were
any
of
those
relationships.
And
I
wish
I
had
understood
personalization
when
boyfriends
broke
up
with
me.
Sometimes
it’s
not
you—it
really
is
them.
I
mean,
that
dude
never
showered.
And
all
three
P’s
ganged
up
on
me
in
my
twenties
after
my
first
marriage
ended
in
divorce.
I
thought
at
the
time
that
no
matter
what
I
accomplished,
I
was
a
massive
failure.
The
three
P’s
are
common
emotional
reactions
to
so
many
things
that
happen
to
us—in
our
careers,
our
personal
lives,
and
our
relationships.
You’re
probably
feeling
one
of
them
right
5
now
about
something
in
your
life.
But
if
you
can
recognize
you
are
falling
into
these
traps,
you
can
catch
yourself.
Just
as
our
bodies
have
a
physiological
immune
system,
our
brains
have
a
psychological
immune
system—and
there
are
steps
you
can
take
to
help
kick
it
into
gear.
One
day
my
friend
Adam
Grant,
a
psychologist,
suggested
that
I
think
about
how
much
worse
things
could
be.
This
was
completely
counterintuitive;
it
seemed
like
the
way
to
recover
was
to
try
to
find
positive
thoughts.
“Worse?”
I
said.
“Are
you
kidding
me?
How
could
things
be
worse?”
His
answer
cut
straight
through
me:
“Dave
could
have
had
that
same
cardiac
arrhythmia
while
he
was
driving
your
children.”
Wow.
The
moment
he
said
it,
I
was
overwhelmingly
grateful
that
the
rest
of
my
family
was
alive
and
healthy.
That
gratitude
overtook
some
of
the
grief.
Finding
gratitude
and
appreciation
is
key
to
resilience.
People
who
take
the
time
to
list
things
they
are
grateful
for
are
happier
and
healthier.
It
turns
out
that
counting
your
blessings
can
actually
increase
your
blessings.
My
New
Year’s
resolution
this
year
is
to
write
down
three
moments
of
joy
before
I
go
to
bed
each
night.
This
simple
practice
has
changed
my
life.
Because
no
matter
what
happens
each
day,
I
go
to
sleep
thinking
of
something
cheerful.
Try
it.
Start
tonight
when
you
have
so
many
fun
moments
to
list—
although
maybe
do
it
before
you
hit
Kip’s
and
can
still
remember
what
they
are.
Last
month,
eleven
days
before
the
anniversary
of
Dave’s
death,
I
broke
down
crying
to
a
friend
of
mine.
We
were
sitting—of
all
places—on
a
bathroom
floor.
I
said:
“Eleven
days.
One
year
ago,
he
had
eleven
days
left.
And
we
had
no
idea.”
We
looked
at
each
other
through
tears,
and
asked
how
we
would
live
if
we
knew
we
had
eleven
days
left.
As
you
graduate,
can
you
ask
yourselves
to
live
as
if
you
had
eleven
days
left?
I
don’t
mean
blow
everything
off
and
party
all
the
time—
although
tonight
is
an
exception.
I
mean
live
with
the
understanding
of
how
precious
every
single
day
would
be.
How
precious
every
day
actually
is.
A
few
years
ago,
my
mom
had
to
have
her
hip
replaced.
When
she
was
younger,
she
always
walked
without
pain.
But
as
her
hip
disintegrated,
each
step
became
painful.
Now,
even
years
after
her
operation,
she
is
grateful
for
every
step
she
takes
without
pain—something
that
never
would
have
occurred
to
her
before.
As
I
stand
here
today,
a
year
after
the
worst
day
of
my
life,
two
things
are
true.
I
have
a
huge
reservoir
of
sadness
that
is
with
me
always—right
here
where
I
can
touch
it.
I
never
knew
I
could
cry
so
often—or
so
much.
But
I
am
also
aware
that
I
am
walking
without
pain.
For
the
first
time,
I
am
grateful
for
each
breath
in
and
out—grateful
for
the
gift
of
life
itself.
I
used
to
celebrate
my
birthday
every
five
years
and
friends’
birthdays
sometimes.
Now
I
celebrate
always.
I
used
to
go
to
sleep
worrying
about
all
the
things
I
messed
up
that
day—and
trust
me
that
list
was
often
quite
long.
Now
I
try
really
hard
to
focus
on
each
day’s
moments
of
joy.
6
It
is
the
greatest
irony
of
my
life
that
losing
my
husband
helped
me
find
deeper
gratitude—
gratitude
for
the
kindness
of
my
friends,
the
love
of
my
family,
the
laughter
of
my
children.
My
hope
for
you
is
that
you
can
find
that
gratitude—not
just
on
the
good
days,
like
today,
but
on
the
hard
ones,
when
you
will
really
need
it.
There
are
so
many
moments
of
joy
ahead
of
you.
That
trip
you
always
wanted
to
take.
A
first
kiss
with
someone
you
really
like.
The
day
you
get
a
job
doing
something
you
truly
believe
in.
Beating
Stanford.
(Go
Bears!)
All
of
these
things
will
happen
to
you.
Enjoy
each
and
every
one.
I
hope
that
you
live
your
life—each
precious
day
of
it—with
joy
and
meaning.
I
hope
that
you
walk
without
pain—and
that
you
are
grateful
for
each
step.
And
when
the
challenges
come,
I
hope
you
remember
that
anchored
deep
within
you
is
the
ability
to
learn
and
grow.
You
are
not
born
with
a
fixed
amount
of
resilience.
Like
a
muscle,
you
can
build
it
up,
draw
on
it
when
you
need
it.
In
that
process
you
will
figure
out
who
you
really
are—and
you
just
might
become
the
very
best
version
of
yourself.
Class
of
2016,
as
you
leave
Berkeley,
build
resilience.
Build
resilience
in
yourselves.
When
tragedy
or
disappointment
strike,
know
that
you
have
the
ability
to
get
through
absolutely
anything
.
I
promise
you
do.
As
the
saying
goes,
we
are
more
vulnerable
than
we
ever
thought,
but
we
are
stronger
than
we
ever
imagined.
Build
resilient
organizations.
If
anyone
can
do
it,
you
can,
because
Berkeley
is
filled
with
people
who
want
to
make
the
world
a
better
place.
Never
stop
working
to
do
so—whether
it’s
a
boardroom
that
is
not
representative
or
a
campus
that’s
not
safe.
Speak
up,
especially
at
institutions
like
this
one,
which
you
hold
so
dear.
My
favorite
poster
at
work
reads,
“Nothing
at
Facebook
is
someone
else’s
problem.”
When
you
see
something
that’s
broken,
go
fix
it.
Build
resilient
communities.
We
find
our
humanity—our
will
to
live
and
our
ability
to
love—in
our
connections
to
one
another.
Be
there
for
your
family
and
friends.
And
I
mean
in
person.
Not
just
in
a
message
with
a
heart
emoji.
Lift
each
other
up,
help
each
other
kick
the
shit
out
of
option
B—and
celebrate
each
and
every
moment
of
joy.
You
have
the
whole
world
in
front
of
you.
I
can’t
wait
to
see
what
you
do
with
it.
Congratulations,
and
Go
Bears!