My Harvard career began with failure. Feeling unmoored as I arrived on campus, I threw myself into trying out for the College’s varsity squash. In high school, squash wasn’t just a sport—it was a defining part of my identity, and within weeks of arriving on campus I was training relentlessly—running sub‐five‐minute miles, working out tirelessly, and sacrificing nearly everything for a dream that felt like reclaiming my past glory. Yet, despite all that, in early November, I was cut.
At that crushing moment, I stumbled upon Steve Jobs’s 2005 Stanford Commencement speech. His speech is centered around three stories about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. In his fifteen-minute address, Jobs goes on to explain that every experience—whether a random failure or a moment of joy—plays an integral role in shaping our lives.
Jobs’s “connecting the dots” story illustrates how seemingly unrelated, disconnected events come together when viewed in hindsight to reveal a coherent narrative. In his tale of love and loss, he acknowledges that deep passion and the pain of letting go are both essential to personal growth. And finally, when he speaks about death, Jobs confronts our mortality, urging us to live each day with authenticity and courage, unburdened by the fear of failure.
After I failed to walk on freshman year, I woke up each winter morning feeling lost. That feeling of disorientation stayed with me. When sophomore year began, I refused to let go of my dream of playing for the team and naively tried out again. This time, I put in even more effort—spending almost all my time eating well, working out, and staying as fit as possible. Squash is one of the most physically demanding sports I have ever played, and that fall, I was completely obsessed. Yet again, after tryouts ended, I didn’t make the team. As Jobs says, sometimes the dots don’t seem to connect until much later—and sometimes in the moment, they don’t seem to be aligning at all.
Even though my parents and friends tried to warn me of the slim odds, the rejection still felt as devastating as the first go-around, if not worse. At the same time, it felt like the walls around me were crumbling as I was forcefully relocated to the Quad, away from all of my friends, and rejected from the squash community I had longed to be part of. However, I was trying to chase an idealized life that I wasn’t even sure I wanted.
That spring, I came across an April 2023 article in the Independent by former vice president Carli Cooperstein ’24 titled “The Power of Uncertainty.” She urged readers to view unpredictability and setbacks not as dead ends, but as raw material for creative reinvention—the same raw material Jobs celebrated in his speech. His stories combined with Cooperstein’s article remind us that every experience, no matter how painful, plays a role in shaping our future. Getting cut and being told that you are not good enough can be painful in the moment, but Cooperstein and Jobs reminded me that these events happen for a reason, and perhaps one day, I’ll look back and understand the connection.
Jobs’s words pushed me to see my journey in a new light. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” he proclaimed. His message urged me to see that every setback—every rejection on the squash court—wasn’t a failure, but simply a dot in a larger picture. While squash felt like my entire life in high school, I was in a new chapter now—one that demanded I expand my horizons. Now at one of the most resource-rich institutions in the world, I learned to embrace not just exciting opportunities and brilliant professors, but also the setbacks that came with growth. My failures, painful as they were, were not dead ends; they were the first stepping stones leading toward discovering something far more important.
Nearly failing Math 21a is another perfect example. I came to Harvard confident in my STEM abilities—buoyed by my sister’s success in Human Developmental Regenerative Biology and my self-image as a “good math student” from high school. However, after one grueling semester of five punishing STEM problem sets per week, that confidence shattered, and I no longer loved what I was doing. My love for math and science, once a core part of my identity, evaporated, allowing me to pivot to the social sciences. Once again, I was chasing someone else’s dream. I realized that while I enjoyed learning STEM, it was not something I truly loved, and in a place filled with sharper, more passionate peers, that difference mattered. Shifting completely away from STEM felt like a massive gamble at the time, but one that I think has paid off. As Jobs wisely noted, you cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.
Jobs’s words helped me frame my failures when it felt like the walls around me seemed to crumble. His decision to drop out of college, pick up a calligraphy class, and later revolutionize typography on the Mac teaches us that what appears random and risky at the time may be the very foundation for future innovation. Similarly, my failures—both on the squash court and in the classroom—have shaped my Harvard experience to one that is much better than it would have been. Not making the squash team was one of the biggest blessings of my Harvard career as it freed my time to meet friends and pursue what I love outside of the classroom, a lesson that took me three years to realize.
Of all of Jobs’s insights, his closing remarks on death remain among the most powerful sentiments I’ve ever encountered—I’ve rewatched that segment hundreds of times. He poses a simple yet profound question: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”
If the answer is “no” for too many days in a row, something must change. This challenge to reassess my daily life struck a deep chord, urging me to confront routines and dreams that no longer served me. Leaning on my high school identity, one of squash and STEM, was never how I was meant to define myself. Instead, it took time to realize I should pivot toward a life defined by what I truly want to do, rather than by the pursuit of someone else’s ideal.
I’ve come to see that knowing life is finite isn’t something to fear—it’s a reminder to live fully and honestly. Death is the one destination that none of us can escape. As Jobs elucidates, it clears out the old to make way for the new, and one day, we too will be cleared out. So don’t waste the limited time that you have. As Jobs says, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
At its core, Steve Jobs’s speech has helped me reframe my mind and tackle the challenges before me. His words remind me that failure is not a dead end, but a series of dots waiting to be connected into a narrative that is uniquely my own. It is easy to feel discouraged by setbacks, to see them as evidence of personal shortcomings rather than as steps toward growth. But if we shift our perspective, failure becomes a force that shapes us, refines our purpose, and opens doors we may not have otherwise considered. I truly encourage anyone, regardless of how lost or overwhelmed you may feel, to reflect on how failure has shaped you. If you allow yourself to sit with it, to learn from it, you may find that what once seemed like an ending is the beginning of something greater.
Luke Wagner ’26 (lukewagner@college.harvard.edu) is the Vice President of the Independent.