I'm not going to stand here and tell you that all of you will succeed in life -- some of you may not. Whether you do or not depends on the major choices you make in life, and more fundamentally, on how you make those choices.

    Will you choose a career because that's what you parents want you to do? Because that's what your friends, or your church, or your race, or community expect you to do?

    Before you step out to face the world, stop and look at yourself. Right now is the time to evaluate who you really are. Look at your morals, your standards in life, and most importantly, your purpose here on earth. Know what you want to achieve and how you want to obtain the goals set before you. Be decisive in your actions and honest in your convictions -- never surrender your values for the sake of another or make another surrender theirs for yours.

    The most common kind of advice heard today is that to achieve happiness on earth, you must be selfless and not selfish -- that you must sacrifice to your community, your country, or your family -- that you must sacrifice for the "good of others," putting your own "selfish" desires aside.

    A contradiction exists in this kind of philosophy. How can one pursue individual happiness when one is focused on everyone else's happiness but their own? Individual success cannot be achieved if one's values are focused on anyone other than the individual.

    Success is not some random role of the dice. Fate and luck do not exist. Your success is ultimately the result of your thinking. The harder you think, the more successful you will be. Your mind controls everything about you -- how you think creates your success. No one can think for you. This is an act you must initiate.

    But, as Thomas Edison said: "There seems to be no limit to which some men will go to avoid the labor of thinking... Thinking is hard work." Success does not come instantly; it must first be created by you, the individual, through your own passionate efforts.

    Being selfish does not mean stomping on others in a violent lust for power or indulging in material possessions at the expense of others. It simply means putting yourself first -- putting your own long-term self-interest above the wishes or desires of others.

    What I am telling you today is radically different than what you've heard before: be selfish. It is you who will suffer the consequences or reap the rewards of the decisions you make in life, so be selfish in making these choices. Use your best judgment, be rational, and make decisions according to what you want.

    We are the freest and most prosperous country in the world because our Founding Fathers based the Constitution on selfishness -- on an individual's right to pursue their own happiness.

    Selfishness is the pursuit of happiness, freedom, and individual aspirations. It means holding on to your standard of values no matter what the cost. It means not sacrificing yourself but living for yourself -- because no one else can live for you.

    Success and happiness are possible to all of us -- regardless of our raw intelligence, race, sex, or background; we must simply be self-interested, not selfless. We must follow our dreams and our goals with our own thought and effort.