TO THE GRADUATES

So its graduation time again and thousands of young people will take the next step on their trip into adulthood. For some it will be more education, probably something specifically tailored to their life ambitions. For others it will be time to go to work and make their own way in life, free to pursue their dreams. For many, they don’t know what those dreams are yet but they are willing to search for one, instead of waiting for it to come to them and they will make a more educated decision later. For a few, sadly, they will spend a few years living in their parents basement, playing video games and drifting around, until they realize that life will go on without them, if they don’t want to be part of the process.

Knowing what I know now, most of what you learned in school was just the basics, including learning how to learn. It was a preparation time and now comes the curriculum that makes every day a learning day for the rest of your life. So much of our education comes from examples. Choices to make based on someone else’s past experiences. A cheap, but very good education if you pay attention. You see there are as many bad choices in life to make as good ones. Maybe even more. Great things will come to those who pay attention.

Our country greatly needs leaders who are willing to step up to the plate and make good choices. If you search the annals of history you will find good examples of people who filled those roles. If you look at Washington right now you will find a lot of those bad examples I talked about.  I guess it’s up to you to try and change the course of this country and not waste the lessons of those good choices.

One of the things I’ve learned about life is that when choices are to be made, there are always two sides. Getting on what you believe to be the right side of things can be unpopular sometimes but all you can do is try to educate people as to why you think your way is better and tell the truth. Then if your way is not the accepted way, you have to yield graciously to what was chosen by the masses and make the best of it. In life, as in sports there are winners and losers. Being a good winner is paramount only to being a good loser also. At the end of the civil war General Ulysses Grant said to the Confederate troops and I paraphrase, “Go home to your loved ones and lets quit this foolishness. It’s a time to heal.” This was the mark of a great leader filled with compassion for his fellow men that were once his enemy.

Society has evolved to a point where human lives, human suffering have lost much of the true meaning of what they should have represented to us. We give a lot of attention to our heroes who died in foreign conflicts to keep our country free. We owe it to them to take up their crosses and preserve what they fought so hard for. Growing up in a poor family from the wrong side of the tracks my father told me, “Remember that you’re just as good as everybody else--- but not one damn bit better. “ That goes for all of you that are going out into the world today. I wish you peace, happiness, and success-- but mostly always-- love for one another.