PEA RIDGE — To the Graduates of 2012:
In my life, I have had more than my fair share of graduations, weddings and funerals.
Having worked for a private college, now a minister and teacher, I have been to many of life’s transitional celebrations. In all honesty, most of the speakers at these events offer the same words just wrapped in different paper over and over again. I believe I can say this because I count myself as one of them. So it is with great relish when I find some tidbits offered by someone who has the guts to tell it like it is. My own daughter is graduating Saturday from Pea Ridge High School, (congratulations Trilby! I am proud of you!), but the advice that I would actually give her would sound much more like what is found below. With this introduction, I want to give credit where credit is due. The first thought is my own. The next nine are from an essay found in the WallStreet Journal by Charles Wheelan.
- God gave us brains and expects us to use them. Believe me. I really am one of those individuals who believe in the “total dependency” thing when it comes to God.
But my goodness, that doesn’t mean put our brains in park!
Some decisions I see made (and often make myself) are just ridiculous! Especially when we simply “run” back to God who we think will cover our moral overdrafts over and over again. Why can’t we just think and do the right thing the first time?
- Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I’ll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one yearafter college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple.
The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire.
- Don’t make the world worse. I know that I’m supposed to tell you to aspire to great things, but I’m going to lower the bar here: Just don’t use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that “changing the world” also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children.
I am not asking you to curecancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.
Marry someone smarter than you are. When I was getting a Ph.D., my wife Leah had a steady income. When she wanted to start a software company, I had a job with health benefits. (To clarify, having a “spouse with benefits” is different from having a “friend with benefits.”) You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water. I also want to alert you to the fact that commencement is like shooting smart fish in a barrel. The Phi Beta Kappa members will have pink-and-blue ribbons on their gowns. The summa cum laude graduates have their names printed in the program. Seize the opportunity!
Help stop the LittleLeague arms race. Kids’ sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it’s fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. We know that success isn’t about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don’t make the traveling soccer team or get into the “right” school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That’s not right.
You’ll never read the following obituary: “Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place.”
Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.
Your parents don’t want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn’t always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices. Theodore Roosevelt - soldier, explorer, president - once remarked, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” Great quote, but I am willing to bet that Teddy’s mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.
Don’t model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricksbecause their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee - and so on, but only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don’t let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are “shirking” your work. But it’s also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship.
That’s just not how we usually think of it.
- It’s all borrowed time.
You shouldn’t take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the “hit by a bus” rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don’t get hit by a bus?
- Don’t try to be great.
Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen.
And if it doesn’t, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.
Good luck and congratulations.
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Editor’s note: John Gibson is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, Pea Ridge.
He can be contacted through this newspaper at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.
Church, Pages 2 on 05/16/2012