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Morning Meditation
May 23, 2026
An excerpt from Jon Haidt’s
commencement speech to the graduating class 2026-NYU:
If there’s just one thing from my address that you remember tomorrow, next week, and 20 years from now, make it this: Treasure your attention.
In 2014, when she was nearly 80 years old, the poet Mary Oliver wrote a short poem titled “Instructions for Living a Life.” It goes like this:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
It sounds simple. But paying attention is in fact one of the most challenging and meaningful things you can do. Because what you pay attention to shapes what you care about. And what you care about shapes who you become.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
Jon Haidt has a unique perspective to offer on the times as a social psychologist, and his words are direct and succinct. I encourage you all to read the entire commencement speech. https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanhaidt/p/haidt-nyu-commencement-address?r=18q8at&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
This excerpt really jumped out at me as I recently addressed our own graduating seniors and am grateful for the many words of advice that can be offered and accepted, at all ages. Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. One could argue Mary Oliver’s words capture the message of the Gospel and our call to be deliverers of it.
Yes, our attention is valuable, so valuable that many in the tech world have recently imposed the “996 schedule”: 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week, originating in the competitive tech culture of China. A 72 hour work week spent on AI and Social Media is not a crazy endeavor when compared to first years in Investment Banking or Consulting, or a young resident on the ER floor. But certainly these kinds of time commitments demand much of our attention. How do we commit our attention, and to what gain? Haidt is asking these young graduates to examine what it is they want to give their attention to and to be intentional. Is it tech, finance, consulting, medicine, law, academia, research, ministry? Socrates argued that an unexamined life isn't worth living. To Socrates, agency means actively questioning your assumptions, testing your values, and choosing how you live rather than just drifting like a leaf blowing in the wind, or floating down the river. Haidt asks us to treasure our attention – to treat our attention like treasure. What should we spend it on?
Haidt goes on to ask his audience to consider to whom they give their attention. We live in a world more connected than ever and yet we are seeing a crisis of loneliness. Haidt reminds these graduates that just as we need to be intentional about the role that screens play in stealing our attention, we need to remember that real human relationships involve human interaction. Human relationships involve risk and effort, which can sometimes be scary and make one vulnerable. Yet there is no doubt that human relationships are essential to living.
Accepting the story of Jesus also requires risk and effort, and is astonishing. When we give it our attention, and fully contemplate and absorb its meaning, I believe we are moved to share the treasure of it with others. We will want to “tell about it.”
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