Here’s a nice little pick-me-up for you on a probably boring Wednesday afternoon. Songwriter, actor, comedian, and writer Tim Minchin delivers a moving speech at his alma mater. He addresses the graduating class of University Of Western Australia and hits them with some very real and very important advice.

Huffington Post was nice enough to display his main talking points in proper list format:

1. You don’t have to have a dream.

2. Don’t seek happiness.

3. Remember, it’s all luck.

4. Exercise.

5. Be hard on your opinions.

6. Be a teacher.

7. Define yourself by what you love.

8. Respect people with less power than you.

9. Don’t rush.

Gen Y, millennials, whatever you want to call them (us) are in a particularly strange position. See, our parents were raised by survivors of the great depression. They were raised to grow up, get a job and reproduce. End of story. Everyone is happy. Then our parents grew up. The hippies came. Shit got weird/awesome, many of our preconceived notions of society were rethought and thrown away. The 80’s happened. Then they enjoyed almost two decades of unprecedented economic growth greatly exceeding any of their parent’s wildest wet dreams for them.

Enter us.

Born in the world spoiled by good fortune, with a real understanding of global events and how the life style we’ve all grown accustomed to, the one we are trained to need, depends on destroying the very planet we live on. We struggle with the void that is our very own lack of struggle and thus lack of meaning. Which sounds incredibly lame when put up against the legions of sick and starving people who make all of the unnecessary shit we’re convinced we need but know we really don’t. What I’m trying to say is our “predicament” is purely mental and we all need to chill out. Alright? Watch the video.

Happy Wednesday.