It's the time of year for speeches. For proclamations, for pronouncements and, above all, for predictions.

Nothing causes outbursts of lyrical waxing quite like commencement. Everyone has something profound to say<\p>--<\p>usually on the subject of your sparkling future.

(As a brief aside, what precisely is supposed to be commencing at commencement? Your degree is ending, not beginning. Maybe it's because ceasement, endment and finishment all sound a little ridiculous.)

I suppose in some ways the graduation ceremony is the final step in the university branding process. They put the stamp of approval on you and send you out in the world to do what you will; with the aforementioned bevy of speeches making sure that you're stuffed full of Very Important Life Facts before you leave.

A great deal of the nonsense you're going to hear revolves around success. How it's yours for the taking. How it is your duty/responsibility/god-given right to serve your fellow men and women by doing fabulously well.

Much is also made of the fact that despite the aura of divinity that Stanford has wrapped you in, you must work hard to achieve your dreams. Failure is around every corner, waiting to ensnare you and rob you of all you are entitled to.

However, contrary to what one might be told, it's easy to succeed in life. Moreover, it's not very important. You can be of far greater value to humanity by embracing failure. After all, before we get anything right we invariably have to get it wrong first (and second, and third, and fourth...). Do you really think the in-car cup-holder could have been created without its innovative (but somewhat unsuccessful) wheel-mounted predecessor?

The biggest problem with success is that it is an end. If you achieve what you set out to, the game is over. Failure on the other hand, failure is a gift that keeps on giving. If you can pick yourself and try again, you'll never lack for the excitement of endeavor.

To some degree, to succeed is to settle. No matter how mundane your ambitions, it will always be the case that to declare yourself satisfied with the fruits of your labors will involve some modicum of compromise.

Now settling isn't perhaps always a bad thing, After all if you can't have what you want perhaps it's better to want what you have.

A better philosophy, though, would be one that understood that the goal is the pursuit of happiness, not the end result. Embracing a lifetime of continual setbacks amounts to becoming enamored of the process (or if one prefers the cliche; it's the journey, not the destination, that matters).

I generally frown on the giving of advice and the spouting of sage wisdom (though after a couple of pints I often fail to live up to my ideals), but for my parting column I couldn't resist.

There's a lot that I'll take away from Stanford. A PhD. Friends. Intellectual stimulation. But above all, an appreciation that life really is at its best when you appreciate that trying has a great deal more value than achieving.

So, amidst the urges to win and the calls to succeed, let me be a voice of dissent. Embrace a lifetime of failure. Of setbacks. Of shattered dreams. Of desperate, unfulfilled hopes. And never settle and never stop and never sit back and rest.