Joe Moran writes to the class of 2023 who started their degrees in 2000 at the height of the COVID pandemic and who will soon graduate:

I dislike the flexed-biceps-emoji, “you’ve-got-this” culture of positive thinking that has overtaken universities in recent years. The self-help and personal growth industries, where all this originates, are wrong to insist that the world is always solvable and that even the worst experiences can be turned into opportunities. Not every adversity is a chance to learn and grow. And no, despite what every graduation ceremony speaker seems to tell you, you can’t just achieve your dreams by never giving up.

But, still, it is amazing what you can survive. And when faced with a real, full-bore crisis, this generation of supposed snowflakes just got on with it and coped better than I did.

So, graduating class of 2023, I doff my floppy felt hat to you. If you can get through a degree with all that going on, I have high hopes for you. Now, if you wouldn’t mind sorting out the world, we’d all be very grateful. Sorry we left it in such a mess.