DEAR graduate,

Before me, under a gloaming sky, were expectant and giddy young women in caps and gowns—an extraordinary collection of talent and ambition, with enough intellectual horsepower to charge a corner of the universe or change the world. My rhetorical repertoire was peppered with words like “seize the day” and “fulfill our promise and potential.” Cardinal Sin, the guest of honor, was so moved, he said, that he asked for a copy of my valedictory speech to plunder for his next sermon.

I clutched in my hand a letter from my boyfriend. “Tonight the stars will be out in force to cheer you on. As I will be,” it began. “Tomorrow our work begins, for much is demanded of those to whom much has been given.” He always did have a way with words, and into my heart, and yes, he went on to become a master of the universe.

Mom didn’t quite know what to make of my prospects, except hold a wish in her heart for my happiness and life’s grace. It was elusive—this happiness—and rested precariously on the untender mercies of my own ambitions. Dad was sterner: Live life in the imperative, he exhorted, with a multitude of exclamation marks! Raise your life’s quotient, he said, and lift the bar of your expectations! Be a better version of yourself!

If you’re not in clover and didn’t inherit it, if you weren’t born with Gisele Bundchen’s good looks and a pneumatic body, if you can’t marry a Zobel de Ayala or a Gokongwei, going the distance demands sacrifice of the kind that drives us beyond ourselves.

Becoming a better version of ourselves is hard work of Olympian proportions and striving of Himalayan heights. You invest deeply in the venture of your life that its failure could cost you your happiness or your peace of mind. You can’t run away or hide from yourself. Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. Just ask Lucio Tan.

I woke up next day, weighed down by a heavy freight of expectation. I could hear the beat of the assegai, I knew my purpose, but there was no road map.

Lifetimes later, age has come with some experience and knowledge. There’s only one thing wrong with the younger generation, Bernard Baruch said, a lot of us don’t belong to it anymore. Let me share these with you:

1. Educational deficit works imperceptibly throughout our lifetime: There will always be people cleverer than us. Education doesn’t end with graduation. It’s not a destination, but a process of learning, all the time. We have more information these days, but less knowledge.

Arm yourself with the tools of a well-explored life—books, philosophy, newspapers, conversation. Go back to school, if you must; opt for engineering, the sciences, pure maths! Equip yourself with useful skills. Cultivate a habit of mind and thinking; learn for success as well as for pleasure.

2. A man’s ambition must be so small to write his name on a privy wall, goes the English proverb. A large and consuming ambition is an excellent thing, like a fire that guides you out of the darkness into the light. Have ambition, as if your life depended on it. Let your reach exceed your grasp. One day it will be a pleasure to read of Filipino particle physicists, Nobel laureates or Olympic superstars.

3. We’re mere specks in the universe; know your self—your strengths, weaknesses, hopes, dreams. Punctuate the grammar of your life with charm, humor, curiosity about the world, interest in others.

4. Embrace hard work—if it’s worth having, it won’t come easy. Don’t let your nerve collapse easily. Take responsibility of your life. Summon up the blood, stiffen the sinew and let spine click firm. “Work is about a daily search for meaning as well as daily bread,” wrote Studs Terkel. “About recognition as well as cash, astonishment rather than torpor.”

5. Have pride in yourself, your achievements and striving. No one knows the tightrope you have walked, how close to the wind you ran to get this far.

6. Your parents should have given you: Roots—so you know where you came from and where to come home at the end of your journey. Wings—so you can fly away from the nest, soar and make your mark upon the world.

7. We can’t buy charisma and we’ll never be perfect, so we work hard to improve ourselves—our speech; the way we behave, extending exquisite courtesy and respect to others; the way we conduct ourselves, in the Confucian way, with the same prudence and honesty we go about our lives, as if we’re being watched by 10 pairs of eyes and pointed at by 10 fingers.

8. Sometimes you will fail and fall off your cushy perch. Pick yourself off the floor, learn from valuable mistakes and move on. The higher the monkey climbs the tree, the more of his nether regions are exposed. Remember Kipling—If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.

9. Have a life strategy and make your career one exciting enterprise. Market yourself unashamedly. Make new friends, but keep old ones; form long-term alliances; keep enemies close to your heart and opponents on your side. Know the secrets of their hearts; it’s better to have the camels inside your tent pissing out than outside pissing in.

10. It’s an adventure! Be alert to threats, but fear nothing and no one. Money is life’s report card, but not the only one. You have a rightful place in this world, live it.

Godspeed!