Blog Post: One Piece of Advice for Graduates

Today is Tuesday the 20th of May, just another 100 degree summer day in our desert valley. But for the seniors at Gateway Early College High School it’s Graduation Day.

At 7 o’clock tonight the students will celebrate one of the more significant moments in their life as they see the hard work and sacrifice of the last 12 school years come to fruition. It will be one of the most exciting and confusing moments in their lives, and not just because of how much they’ll leave behind but how little they know about what they’ll encounter.

For most of us the extent of our world is fairly limited through high school. We’re granted the right to make specific decisions about the way we live our daily lives, but the larger dynamics that shape our world are primarily out of our control. Up until this point a young American’s life has been characterized by indoctrination. A training and social education that will, theoretically, provide you with the necessary tools to make proper decisions in the future. But how many of us recognize the magnitude of this fundamental shift in our responsibility to society and ourselves. After eighteen years of training on how to follow a path, there is shockingly little focus on the fact that for the rest of our lives we need to create our own. A lifetime of being told what to do leaves many of us waiting for instructions as opposed to seeking answers for ourselves.

For the Class of 2008 I have one piece of advice; it’s your world, take up some space. Remember as you move forward that you have the fundamental right to pursue anything and everything you’ve ever wanted and nobody can take that away. At the same time, nobody owes it to you. There is no one route that’s correct and no point when the tough questions of today become any easier. Realize that there’s nothing you should do, only things you can do. Find confidence in giving all you have in everything you do and comfort in the knowledge that your potential has been realized. Do this and you’ll excel where capable, and likely fail where you’re not, but you’ll never wonder what could have been.

Congratulations! Enjoy the day, the week, the summer… You earned it!