 For many, this time is a bookmark, before Michigan, after Michigan, before COVID-19, after COVID-19, before PhD, and after PhD. While these are unsettling times, one thing a wise teacher always told me is the only difference between seeing the future through a lens of fear and seeing the future through a lens of possibilities, it's breath, so let's all take a breath right now. It feels a bit silly to be here in my gown, in my home office, but wherever, with whomever you are with today, it's a special day. The final culmination of so much hard work, dedication, and sacrifice, not only from yourself, but from all the loved ones and dear ones who supported you along the way. It's momentous achievement to get a PhD, and less than 1% of the country even has one. Like many of you here, I'm a first generation college student, and doing work that my grandparents, Pullman porters, and washing women would have never imagined. Only two other professions wear gowns, priest and judge, so we've really entered in a calling of sorts, sacred work. A long, long time ago, there was something, the kernel of your essence so small that you may have forgotten that led you here to where you are today, towards education, a PhD, Michigan, and sustained you through all the ups and downs of the journey, particularly the arteries dissertation process. And now you've arrived, you're at the other end of the birth canal, so to speak. And here we are, like a newborn baby at a new beginning. So looking back at my journey, I was thinking, what would I say to myself, back when I was a baby in the womb, beginning to prepare on this PhD journey? Well, first, I would tell myself to trust my first impression, and being open to changing that impression. Even before I applied, I knew Michigan was the place for me. And here I just want to express my deep gratitude to my advisors, Jerry Davis and Jane Dutton, who are the best advisors I could have ever asked for. I feel so fortunate to have them as colleagues now. But I have a confession to make. As much as I knew the University of Michigan was the place for me, I didn't feel the same way about Michigan, let alone Ann Arbor. In fact, my first two years here, I hated Ann Arbor. It was just a little bit too pleasantville for me. I called it Huahua, which is Arabic for a same thing. And then there was one summer where I was stuck here, without a car, and discovered the other side of Ann Arbor. You know the one without any undergrads, with art fair dancing in the street, top of the park, Detroit, I actually lived there for a while, the African American Festival. Did you know there's certain places around Southeast Michigan that were stopped on the underground railroad? And I fell in love, which was the simplicity and ease of Ann Arbor, and it really helped me focus on my studies. And over time, I became involved with communities that showed me a deeper side of Ann Arbor that went beneath the Huahua. So the first advice I give my baby in the womb self is to trust my first impression and be open to changing it. The second thing I'd remind myself is that I'm just not that special. Every stage of the PhD program is really hard, like I'm saying it's not a degree that many people have. And when I would tell people about how hard it was, they would just say, just trust the process. And I'm like, what process? But there is some wisdom baked into the advice, that things you learn sort of in that heavy coursework phase help transition you to go through the gate of passing cops, which then help you as you sort of prepare for the next rite of passage, which is the dissertation proposal. And often, when things were the hardest in my program, I would look around and think, well, only one person's gotten kicked out of my program in the past 25 years or so. It's really not very likely that I'd be the second one. I'm just not that special. And I had advisors who were humble who said, no, it's not that they were innately smarter. It was just they've been doing this thing called research longer. And remembering that I was not that special, that the sky wasn't going to fall just on my head helped sustain me and commit to the process. It reminded me of that old bed when saying trust in God, but tie up your camel. And as long as I committed to the process, stayed committed to my work, and had a bit of trust the wisdom, had a little bit of intervention on my side, things were going to work out. More than 75% of the people who come to Michigan for a PhD leave with a PhD. And the odds were in my favor, I was going to be in that group. So the second thing I remind myself is, I'm really not that special. And then the third thing I would tell myself that baby in the womb is that I would tell her about this idea of chit. Chit is a Sanskrit word that signifies there's a natural intelligence in the unfolding in life. We all have work to do here on Earth, I believe. And this work is work that only we, only that we uniquely can do. And there's this essence, this spark that led us here today and will continue to guide us in the future. So I feel like I'm one of the only people left that still uses Pandora. And I barely use Facebook, but to the wonders of Facebook, I recently connected with someone from junior high school and I was catching them up on all my life of the past 25 years or so. And they were like, well, I never expect you to be doing what you're doing today, to be where you're at today. But honestly, I'm not surprised at all. This all just sounds so like you, Lindsay. What could I say? Like many of you, I've changed in ways that are actually unfathomable to me. If you had told me this was the way it was going to be before I entered the PhD program, back when I was that baby in the womb. Yet my essence, your essence, that small colonel that pulled you here remains unchanged and keeps pulling you toward the next stage of your journey. To that work that only you can do. And this work is called many different things. Destiny, karma, kismet, edu and yoruba. I just call it the thing you can't help but do. And the more that one can trust that natural intelligence, the more that life can unfold in all its beauty and grace. So the third thing I tell that that baby in that womb, that little myself, is to remind her, remind me of this natural intelligence that sort of guides us throughout life. So lastly, in many indigenous traditions, you ask the elders for blessings as you transition and move on to that next stage of the journey. So the blessings, as we move on to this next stage, you know, as now we're new babies about to begin this post-PhD journey. The blessings I would ask for myself and for everyone else would be this. First, may the path be free and clear. May we remain steadfast in doing the work that only we can do. That we lift and build our communities as we rise. That we trust the natural intelligence of life that just is. That we keep surfing the waves of life. And that we all remember to just breathe. Thank you.