http://pegobry.tumblr.com/post/11172033415

But even lesser ambitions will often be costly. Anything really worth doing will take a lot of your time and energy, probably more than most people are willing to give. Which I why I don’t think commencement addresses ought to come in the “Follow your dream” flavor; or when they do, then the message needs to be “Follow your dream, but don’t be under any illusions about how hard it will be to achieve. Prepare to pay a heavy price. And you had better be ready to stop from time to time to count the cost, to decide whether the dream-following you’re doing today is something you’re deeply going to regret some years down the line.” Commencement addresses shouldn’t be discouraging, but they shouldn’t offer empty encouragement either.

Fantastic comments by @pegobry on Steve Jobs’ oft-cited Stanford speech; emphasis mine. 

Source: news.stanford.edu