Each year at this time, sans Covid, graduations take place. There are requisite speeches, a great many of them, totally forgettable. Of my high school graduation, I remember only one thing, that the man droned on and on from a read speech and he used the word aesthetic repetitively. He was a President from an art college. I don’t recall a single word from the speech at a much more recent two-year degree and for my bachelors, I skipped the occasion altogether; the college was predominately continuing education for adults.
Speakers invited to give commencement addresses are almost invariably esteemed fellows and madams, public officials, highly degreed individuals, all thought to embody ‘accomplishment’. In fact, the higher their ranking in officialdom, they’re most likely to use the stage to make remarks calculated to speak to anyone but the audience at hand, to call out others in a capacity to the office they hold or simply to embellish their own image. Maybe I could offer something more. I have in mind high school students as my daily work brings me into a small part of their world.
Some of these thoughts are in flagrant violation of the ‘Woke’ code. This is intentional. A young person standing at the doorway between their youth and young adulthood will only stand at this juncture once; the decisions they have are too critical to blow on a social fever that’s failing in real time. They’ll never cross through this exact juncture again.
Here are some remarks I’d make:
This year is one of two academic years seriously affected by Covid. Many of you likely still feel traumatized. Get over it. Going back several generations, you have relations that saw two world wars, and a worse pandemic. They saw innumerable smaller wars and several major genocides in the news, a depression, and several deep recessions. Some lost everything, many lost loved ones and yet here you are today, their descendants. Don’t dwell on a year of lost rituals, move forward, move on quickly.
Speaking of your parents and your family line, most of them sacrificed to give you what you have today. In most cases, you lived a better upbringing then they had and your parents more so than their parents, and so on. Pay it forward. If you received favors, a step up, security, vow to do as much or more. If you feel you did not receive these things, vow to be unlike your parents and do what they neglected.
It is a time where socially, your generation has taken on activism to champion the cause of the oppressed, particularly along racial and gender lines of identity. It’s very easy to march, burn, destroy, loot, and hate. It is exponentially harder to build a society from the ground up. In an academic world where history has devolved into propaganda that’s lost most of any basis in fact and yet has embraced Marxist ideology, you will get what you pay for. When other’s people money runs out, you will have to eat only what your hands have destroyed. Instead, embrace the vision upon which our country was made; faith, work, sacrifice and the determination to leave a better world for your offspring. There’s no higher charity than to teach self-sufficiency, create and provide employment for others, and to give sacrificially.
You are now being bombarded with messages suggesting that there should be equality of outcome regardless of contribution. That is a lie. Prior to that, we were all taught to expect equality of opportunity. While that is a noble idea, even that is not the reality that most of you will experience. Yes, there will be outliers, but statistics say that a majority of you will settle back in to live within twenty miles of the home you grew up in and do the same kinds of work that your parents did. If you qualify your life’s success on beating those odds, you’ll live with significant frustration. By all means, follow your dreams, be an entrepreneur, reach for high office, try to change your world, but be prepared for life’s road to take some of you elsewhere. It is often a thousand failures that paves the way for a single eventual success. Even the best of the highest of ideas and successes have a life cycle. They are born, the thrive, then they die, perhaps over a millennium, a century, a decade, or a year.
Rather than fill your mind with intangibles, I will suggest several practical steps to be prepared for life. Lists, it’s always lists so here is mine for you:
There are four things that you should master regardless of whether you go into a profession, a manual trade, or homemaker life.
One: A profession or educational equivalent, even if you plan to work with your hands or a technical skill, try to attain at least a two-year college degree. It will eventually pay your back.
Two: A trade, a practical skill set that uses your hands, even if you plan to work a profession. Most of you will be surprised how helpful it is for at least a season of your life.
Three: A personal interest or hobby, because accomplishment is more than what brings in the big bucks. It may also pay the mortgage someday.
Four: A sport, as you only have one body to take care of and a sport will focus your resolve for your body better than hitting a number on the scale or trips to the gym. It will also bring great benefit to your mind.
As a shortcut to decide the best course for your life, find three seasoned people you admire and imitate their life and their path, but be cognizant of a few limits to this method. Some people travel a path that could only be made by one person and no others. Be aware that your model may have lived through better or worse circumstances than you, either of which would have been crucial to obtaining that goal. Also do not forget that the inner drives and motivations that made that person what they are could be very different than your own. Take all of these into consideration.
Don’t be so shortsighted to measure your life’s accomplishment only by what you get out of it. Instead, fully consider the positive lifetime accomplishments that you bring to your family, your tribe, your industry, and your nation. Demographics are destiny. Don’t devalue the contribution that you bring in bearing and raising a responsible family. Far from living in an over-populated world, by the time you retire, you will be living in a world beginning a long decline in residents. Western nations in particular will be global minorities. To the extent that voting democracies still function, it will only be those demographic groups that maintain their generational numbers that still have a chance to guide their own national destinies. Within thirty years, your grandparent’s generation will be gone and a few decades later, your parent’s as well. The decisions you make, predominantly within the next ten years will determine the course of your nation and your children’s fortunes for generation afterwards. The gravity of that responsibility cannot be overstated.
These are not times to begin a party with no defined end. Celebrate today, the week or month, then set you mind, your hands, your hearts to the work in front of you. Your life right now is a field in springtime. You have only a little while to sow what you’re going to sow, then you’ll wait, guide the outcome, and someday harvest the good fruit if the work was done in its proper season.