We're in the season of graduations from both high school and college. A few years ago I wrote a blog addressed to college graduates and as I was re-reading it this afternoon I found that it was still pretty relevant so if you or someone you know is graduating from college this spring, I invite you to take a look at it by clicking HERE.
But in this blog, I want to address specifically high school graduates. A guy I was in college with posted pics from his son's high school graduation this week and it prompted me to think about my own high school graduation, which happened kind of a long time ago now, but it was also just the day before yesterday.
If I could go back in time and tell my 18-year-old recently graduated self a few things, it might go a little bit something like this.
First of all, I'd tell 18-year-old me that it's really important to make plans and stick to them, and the more specific those plans are, the better things are likely to turn out. Decide what you want, and every time you have any kind of decision to make, big or small, take a moment to consider which options will bring you closer to your goals and which will push those goals further away, or maybe even lower the chances that you'll ever reach them.
Going through life without goals means you'll just kind of drift from one thing to the next without ever actually accomplishing anything and waking up one day to the realization that you've wasted a lot of time going nowhere. The later in life you come to this point, the harder it'll be to redeem whatever time you've got left.
Second, I'd tell 18-year-old-me a few things about what it's like looking back on high school later in life, and what it's NOT like.
I never went to any of the reunions my fellow graduates because...well...I just didn't. I distinctly remember thinking I would, but in the event, I never did. As they approached, especially the first one at 10 years out, I seriously considered the possibility of going. But the expense in time and money to make the trip just didn't seem worth it, because I would rather spend that time and money on other things. I had things I'd accomplished since I graduated, and there were things I hadn't quite accomplished. There were people I'd like to try and impress with my accomplishments, and there were other people I might not want to admit the things I hadn't accomplished yet. But that's not what kept me away. I just had better things to do with my time and money, especially since I was able to keep in touch with the people I really wanted to, very easily, since email had just been invented around the time we graduated together and Facebook came along a few years later.
This brings us to my first life lesson for you graduates, and it's something most of you might have a hard time believing, but it goes like this.
The things that are really important to you right now will not be as important to you later in life. That even includes things you NEED right now, like the friends you've spent your childhood and teenage years with. There's some truth to the saying that "the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young" but that doesn't mean you'll be "friends forever" with everyone you shared your school years with.
As you grow older, you'll make new friends and develop new interests, and the connections you have now with people, places and circumstances will become less important. Even the relationships you keep will change. For instance, there's a couple of people who I was in school with who I still stay in touch with over Facebook, despite the fact that I never really liked them much back then. But as we got older and things changed, especially after I got married and had children, I started to have more in common with these individuals than I did when we were kids. Some others who I was really good friends with back in the day are now people who I have very little in common with.
Another closely related point is how many of the things I expected to happen in my own life, and the lives of my friends, that didn't happen, or they happened but it didn't lead to the expected results.
In particular, when the time came for my 30-year reunion, people began exchanging news and updates about each other and I heard about a guy I'd been casual friends with who had made a pretty big mistake back in high school, he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant. She was pregnant most of our senior year and she had her baby just a couple of days after we graduated. They got married that summer and he took an entry-level job with a company owned by one of his dad's friends. It was a pretty inauspicious start to their lives, and I remember being kind of sad for them because they'd both wanted to go to college and now they couldn't. I also remember thinking that having started off in such an unpromising way, it was unlikely that their marriage would last.
But I turned out to be wrong, because they are still together, and they have had several more children. Despite not going to college, he eventually started his own business, and it was very successful.
The lesson here is that although it's better not to make mistakes, if you DO make them, it doesn't mean your life is over. Even big mistakes can be redeemed, and in the case of my casual friend, the fact that he had parents and siblings who helped him and his new wife and child made a big difference.
That's another lesson dear graduates, about the importance of family and community. Invest in yours, if you're blessed to have them. If you're not blessed to have them, find one that you can join yourself to. It makes all the difference. Some people who DIDN'T make any big mistakes nonetheless had a very difficult time in life simply because they didn't have any family or community to help them when they inevitably had problems or issues that they needed help with.
I ESPECIALLY want to urge you to be nice to your parents. Some of you are overjoyed to "finally" be free to go out into the world beyond the authority of your parents. Some of you might have had parents who were abusive, or if not abusive then just not very helpful. If that's your situation, I'm sorry, and I hope you can find some way to redeem those relationships.
But if you've got parents who did their best and who can still be helpful to you in the future, be nice to them. It's not easy watching the child you've raised and still love very much (and worry about) leaving the nest. Even if your parents know you're ready, they still worry, so be nice to them. With the exception of God Himself, you'll never have anyone who wants to help you succeed more than they do.
That brings me to another point, that life can take a LOT of very unexpected twists and turns.
For instance, the people who were voted "most likely to succeed" in the senior yearbook ended up not doing anything very special. One works as a mid-level manager at a small bank in a town a few hundred miles up the interstate from the town we graduated in while the other one moved to Chicago and taught at a small university there. Both of them got married and had children and no one would say they didn't "succeed" in life, but no more than most of the rest of us.
So if you weren't voted "most likely to succeed" in the senior yearbook, or even if you were, that's just an old custom (which maybe they don't even do anymore) and it doesn't mean anything in particular.
Once again, my graduating class includes people who had all kinds of stories.
Most of us went to college and most of those who started college finished and got their degrees, while a few dropped out of college. Some moved back home to live in the town where they grew up while others moved to other towns, other states, or like me, other countries, to pursue different careers. Very few of us ended up working in jobs that we thought we'd be working in when we were in high school. Only a few married the person they thought they wanted to marry when we were in high school.
One girl went to New York after we graduated to pursue her dreams of making it big in the fashion industry. She never came to any reunions either and she never sent any messages updating us on anything, so I don't know if she accomplished her dreams or not. I hope she did.
Another girl who was in the same Geometry class as me our junior year made some bad choices after graduation and ended up going to prison. She got out after serving several years but was back in prison within a few months and she's still there, having been denied parole several times. I sent her a letter once, trying to joke about old times, but she either didn't get the letter or she wasn't amused because she didn't respond. Maybe she was embarrassed, I don't know.
A few people joined the military and ended up fighting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One guy, who I remembered being very friendly and cheerful, got killed in action in Iraq. His little sister made a memorial website and I visit that website every year on Memorial Day. Every year it makes me cry, even though I didn't know him very well.
On that note, at the thirty-year mark, I was saddened to see that several of the people I graduated from high school with were already no longer alive. Most had died in car accidents or from diseases. One guy came to the thirty-year reunion although he hadn't been at the previous ones because, as he stood up and told everyone, he had a chronic condition which made it unlikely he'd be around for the 40-year reunion, and he wanted to see his old friends one last time. I wasn't there, but people who were told me that when he got up and made that announcement, two other people tearfully stood up and said they didn't expect to live long enough to come to the 40-year reunion either.
Some of the people who died lost their lives to the side effects of drug abuse, including some who had been into drugs already back in high school. Others were a big surprise, as they'd seemed to be pretty squared away and not the kind of people anyone would have thought would go down that path.
But, nonetheless.
The point I'm trying to make here, dear graduates, is that your life is just beginning, and it could be much better, or much worse, than anything you're even imagining or worried about right now. Making good choices and minimizing mistakes is very important, but neither is a guarantee of any outcomes, good, bad, or indifferent.
I took all the big tests when I graduated, including the SAT and the ACT and the ASVAB and a few others. My scores placed me in the top ten percent of graduating seniors in the United States that year, but literally millions of people who scored lower than me have had more successful careers and made more money than I ever did.
I never abused any drugs, but some people who did have had more success in some areas of life than I have had, while many others have had less. I once worked for a man who casually talked about all the party drugs he'd done when he was a young man. In the years that I worked for him, I watched him make all kinds of bad decisions that were probably at least partially explained by impaired cognitive function from all those drugs he'd done. But he was my boss, and for the years I spent in that job, I just had to cope with it as best I could. That's how things had fallen into place.
So dear graduates, in conclusion, I want to congratulate you for reaching this milestone in your young lives, and wish you all the best in whatever comes next.
Just remember...
Making plans, setting goals, saying no to everything that doesn't help you accomplish your goals and minimizing damage to your life from mistakes are all very important.
Take care of your health, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Don't forget to honor your father and mother, and don't forget your Heavenly Father. You'll need God, and your parents, far more in the years ahead than you can possibly imagine at this stage in your journey.
Be careful with whatever money you're blessed to have, and don't go any deeper into debt than you absolutely have to.
Be realistic, and don't be so sure of yourself. It's a rare person who doesn't look back on their life as they get older and realize that they were wrong about many things.
Be willing to admit it and apologize when you realize you were wrong, or made a mistake. The person who admits it when they're wrong, or made a mistake, or lied, or otherwise did something that was hurtful to others, will gain the respect of those they hurt. Those who don't admit it will be resented by those they hurt and it'll cause all kinds of problems for both parties.
On that note, you should always forgive people when they make mistakes, even if they don't apologize, not for their sake but for your own. But be careful not to trust that person again, because if they didn't apologize the first time they abused your trust, they'll probably do it again.
Above all my friends, manage your expectations. Remember these stories I've told you in this blog about all the expectations I had when I was in your shoes, graduating from high school lo these many years ago. Almost nothing I thought the future would hold, for myself or for my friends, ended up going the way any of us thought it would. Some people we expected to crash and burn ended up doing great. Some people we expected to soar with the eagles ended up crashing and burning.
Most of us turned out just fine.
I hope you do too, and I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I've enjoyed mine so far.
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