Congratulations! You have made it. Exactly where you've made it to is open for argument and interpretation. But since I am the author and this is my blog, we shall pay attention only to my argument.
You have made it. To nowhere.
Now, I am not putting you down, but you are basically in the process of your first "do-over". I say your first, because if you are like the majority of people in the western world, you will experience multiple do-overs in your lives. Some will be the result of good things, like graduating, getting a promotion, making a lot of money, having children. Some, will be bad things. Those bad things that often begin with the letter "d". Death, divorce and "damn kids".
Whatever the reason, you are at the closing page of your first chapter and we all know, most books aren't loved, revered, respected or even all that memorable after just the first chapter. Your accomplishment of graduating is a big one. But it is the first, and perhaps least important milestone that is ahead of you. In short, what you have done, while worth celebrating, was simply compulsory.
It's the subsequent chapters of your personal book that will be most revealing. Revealing the whole you, your character, your charms, your beauty and. yes, even your inner ugly. College is the next chapter for many of you. The college years are great. This will be the most confusing, hyper, fun-filled, traumatic romp through Idville ever conceived. It has some great bits.
You will spend the rest of your life re-reading the second chapter, which is fine. I would just encourage you to be living in a more mature chapter while you do so. No story is worth the world's time and attention, no life is well led if it never gets past the second chapter.
I pray you all look at the world around you, dream a solution to just one thing near to your heart and go about working for change. Everyone can complain. Everyone can commiserate, but did you know that nothing changes if you don't make the change you seek? If you don't vote, don't volunteer, don't fight for the furtherance of your beliefs, you are not holding up your end of the bargain. That is uncool which is just as bad to be when you are older than it is now. Life never stops being a popularity contest. The good news is that all the things that make you unpopular now, like being careful, making good decisions, studying, working hard... these make you a rock star later on. That guy who played sports and bullied people and never grew up will be a security guard at the company you own; and even though you will recognize him, you will pretend you don't when you walk by him every day looking all important and rich. And even though that is wrong and mean, it will feel so good you won't stop.
Sorry, this isn't about my unresolved issues, I digress.
Let's sum up and get back on track. You have taken much from the universe to get you this far, which as you will recall from my premise statement is essentially nowhere worth bragging about. Even with that said, it is still a great and important achievement.
So, what's the good in all this? Well, I am glad you asked because this is where it starts to get really interesting. The good in all this is that you will soon be an adult. You will be the master of your own decisions and your own destiny. So long as you stay within the bounds of the law, (or stay quiet about breaching them), the world will leave you alone.
Remember ever saying as a kid, "I can't wait to grow up and I can be the boss of something..." and the adult to whom you declared this smiled at you and said, "Oh, TimmyJ or SuzyQ. Don't rush to grow up. These are the best moments of your life right now!"
They were lying.
Adulthood is awesome.
Aside from the hours I work in a week, my life belongs to me. I can volunteer, I can take classes, I can work on a cause, I can stay out all night, (but I don't), and my status as the breadwinner of the house has afforded me the unquestionable and inalienable right to both the remote control and the biggest piece of meat on the platter for all perpetuity! Or until I die, whichever comes first.
It's a pretty good deal. And that is the good news. Of course this is a great day in your life. A great accomplishment. You should feel proud! I hope you do. I am proud of you! But the good news is that you ain't seen nothin' yet! It gets so much better. It will keep getting better if you look for it to, and take steps to make it so!
Chapter 2 is coming up and you deserve to write a good one. Chapter 3 will start out fast and furious, like chapter 2, but will slow precipitously. Some parts will seem a little boring and mopey. It will be difficult to go back and reread parts of this chapter which makes up your 20s. After all, at that point you're not quite all the way grown and not quite living in your parents' basement. You are somewhere in between.
Chapter 4 is your 30's and it rocks if you let it. More money, travel, true love, better friends, less puking... it's all good stuff. Sure, you won't be able to walk a tightrope while doing a beer bong and then go to work the next morning and be "fine" like you could in your 20's. But you won't care. By the time you hit your 30's, your idea of fun is different and thankfully less bad for you. Unless you're into all that weird stuff like climbing mountains with no safety gear, or jumping from a perfectly good plane to test your revolutionary rocket suit that runs on rainbows and ambition. If you are one of those people, I fear there is little hope for you.
I assume it gets better from there, but I don't know yet. I am looking forward to what comes next. You should be, too. I think in short, life is great. If you make it so. And that is the one thing you can resolve to do today, and every morning you are blessed by God to walk on his Earth.
Today, at the time of your graduation, remember you are good, we are proud, we love you, you have done a wonderful thing and we salute you. But you owe us. You owe us for the help studying and the talks about every boy or girl who broke your heart and made you want to die. You owe your parents for shelling out the equivalent of the GDP of a small country to buy you school supplies, instruments, computers, sporting equipment to say nothing of clothes, whose purchase you continually honored by storing them in giant heaps on your floor, under your bed, or if you were really a go-getter, the bottom of your closet. And we haven't even begun talking about hocking the house and selling your younger sibling into slavery to afford tuition for that lucrative liberal arts degree you'll pursue with vigor. Remember that each time you skip class to watch a rerun of The Waltons or The Price is Right. Trust me, it happens.
You owe the world for the amount you have used and thrown away. You owe all of us and you can pay us back by starting over from this day with an eye toward the positively impacting the future of the world and all human kind!
I proudly proclaim to you, the high school graduates of 2012 that today is the last day of the first part of your life and the first day of the first part of the second chapter of what we all hope will be a long life ahead. Don't screw it up. We're expecting big things from you.
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