JK Rowling’s advice to the 2008 graduates of the Harvard University
JK Rowling’s advice to the 2008 graduates of the Harvard University, delivered in Massachusetts, USA on June 5, was outstanding. It was a presentation from snatches of her own life to instill a sense of understanding what failure is and top it all with a dash of imagination that has always played a very important part in her life. We all know this inspiring novelist of the Harry Porter series has seen escalating success since the publication of her first book. Rowling came from humble parents who had had no higher education and JK Rowling had dreams of pursuing the study of English Literature. At one phase of her life she was jobless but not homeless, a single mother living with the dream of becoming a novelist. Rowling went on to stress that it is not easy living with failure but one must never be afraid to face failure. The only other way is conjuring up an imagination and exercising it.
She went on to tell the fresh graduates that it was only 7 years from her graduation that she had failed miserably in life. To her imagination is something beyond the bedtime stories that we have all read. It is like having a mind that goes past all barriers to envision and feel the pains of others by putting yourself in their position. She worked at Amnesty International’s headquarters for their research department and this experience let her to mingle with torture victims from Africa and ex-political prisoners. It is there that she got a chance to learn how different and peaceful her life was from theirs, in spite of her failures and poverty. This is where from the rags-to-riches girl mustered courage to face the world and to become the only billionaire from writing novels. And all this she graciously shared with the fresh faced and young graduates who are responsible for shaping the future world.
