Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, thank you, President Powers, Provost Fenves-Deans, members of the faculty（才能）, family, and friends, and most importantly, the class of 2014. It is-- it is indeed an honor for me to be here tonight. It's been almost 37 years to the day that I graduated from UT. I remember a lot of things about that day.

  I remember I had a throbbing（跳动的） headache from a party the night before. I remember I had a serious girlfriend, who I later married. That's important to remember, by the way. And I remember I was getting commissioned（委任） in the Navy that day. But of all the things I remember, I don't have a clue who the commencement speaker was, and I certainly don't remember anything they said. So acknowledging（承认） that fact, if I can't make this commencement speech memorable（值得纪念的）, I will at least try to make it short.

  So the university slogan（标语） is, "What starts here changes the world." Well, I've got to admit I kind of like it. What starts here changes the world. Tonight, there are almost 8,000 students, or there are more than 8,000 students, graduated from UT. So that great paragon of analytical（分析的） rigor（严格）, ask.com, says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime（一生）. 10,000 people.

  That's a lot of folks. But if every one of you change the lives of just 10 people, and each one of those people change the lives of another 10 people, and another 10, then in five generations, 125 years, the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people. 800 million people. Think about it. Over twice the population of the United States, go one more generation, and you can change the entire（全部的） population of the world. 8 billion people.

  If you think it's hard to change the lives of 10 people, change their lives forever, you're wrong. I saw it happen every day in Iraq（伊拉克共和国） and Afghanistan（阿富汗(西南亚国家)）. A young Army officer makes a decision to go left instead of right down a road in Baghdad, and the 10 soldiers with him are saved from a close-in ambush. In Kandahar Province（省）, Afghanistan（阿富汗(西南亚国家)）, a non-commissioned officer from the female engagement（婚约） team senses（感觉到） that something isn't right and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500-pound IED, saving the lives of a dozen（一打） soldiers, but if you think about it, not only were those soldiers saved by the decisions of one person, but their children were saved, and their children's children, generations were saved by one decision, one person, but changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it, so what starts here can indeed change the world, but the question is, what will the world look like after you change it? Well, I'm confident that it will look much much better, but if you'll humor（ 纵容） this old sailor for just a moment, I have a few suggestions that may help you on your way to a better world, and while these lessons were learned during my time in the military（军队）, I can assure（使确信） you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform, it matters not your gender（性别）, your ethnic（种族的） or religious background, your orientation（方向） or your social status（身份）. Our struggles（ 努力） in this world are similar, and the lessons to overcome（克服） those struggles（ 努力） and to move forward, changing ourselves and changing the world around us will apply equally to all.

  I've been a Navy SEAL（封蜡） for 36 years, but it all began when I left UT for basic SEAL training in Coronado, California（加利福尼亚）. Basic SEAL training is six months of long torturous（折磨人的） runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacle（障碍） courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep, and always being cold, wet and miserable（痛苦的）. It is six months of being constantly（不断地） harassed（使困扰） by professionally trained warriors（战士） who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL（封蜡）. But the training also seeks（寻找） to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant（不变的） stress, chaos（混乱）, failure（失败）, and hardships. To me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months. So here are the ten lessons I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life.

  Every morning in SEAL training, my instructors who at the time were all Vietnam veterans（老兵） would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they do is inspect（检查） my bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers would be pulled tight, the pillow centered（居中） just under the headboard, and the extra blanket（毛毯） folded neatly at the foot of the rack（架）. It was a simple task, mundane（世界的） at best, but every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection（完善）. It seemed a little ridiculous（可笑的） at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring（渴望） to be real warriors（战士）, tough（坚韧的） battle-hardened（使变硬） SEALs, but the wisdom（ 智慧） of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished（完成） the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride（骄傲） and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another, and by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.

  Making your bed will also reinforce（增援） the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right, and if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made, and a made bed gives you encouragement（ 鼓励） that tomorrow will be better. So if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. During SEAL training the students, during training the students are all broken down into boat crews（全体船员）. Each crew is seven students, three on each side of a small rubber（ 橡皮） boat, and one coxswain to help guide the dinghy. Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed（指导） to get through the surf zone（地区） and paddle several miles down the coast.

  In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be eight to ten feet high, and it is exceedingly（非常地） difficult to paddle through the plunging（使投入） surf unless everyone digs（掘） in.