Dick Cheney: The country of the second chance

From a talk by the US Vice-President to students graduating at Michigan State University

It's a privilege to receive this honorary degree from one of America's finest universities. Many of you will leave Michigan State today with definite plans of your own. Yet I'll wager that 10 years from now, many of you will find yourselves following a quite different course, all because of an opportunity that came out of the blue.

Be on watch for those certain moments, and certain people, that come along and point you in a new direction. Sometimes others know better than we do just what our gifts are, and how we can use them. For all the plans we make in life, sometimes life has other plans for us.

Those of us who've been around a while can also recall a few times when life took an unexpected turn, but in a disappointing way. The citation read a moment ago left out the part when I dropped out of school after a few semesters at Yale. Well, actually, dropped out isn't quite accurate. Asked to leave would be more like it – twice. To this day, Yale has not invited me to join in their commencement exercises. I think they're afraid I'll leave early.

You may face some disappointing turns of your own – times when you fall short, knowing you could have done better. And when that happens, don't let your doubts get the best of you. I have met some very successful people in my day – men and women of talent and character who have risen to the top of their fields. And it's the rare one who hasn't had a taste of failure, or a false start along the way.

Setbacks in life can stop you dead in your tracks, or they can inspire you forward. Either way, you will look back on them as turning points. They are crucial days in your life, when you see the starkest kind of choice, and know it belongs to you alone.

One of the things I love most about our country is that we have such opportunities. There are places in the world where failure is final, and one early misstep will decide your fate forever. But America is still the country of the second chance. Most of us end up needing one. And when we've gone on to accomplish something, we can be that much more grateful.