2020: What a Time to Graduate

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2020 is an unlucky year to be graduating from high school (or college, or graduate school or whatever you finally finished) and to make up for the lack of an in-person ceremony we decided to host a graduation for my daughter in our back yard. This is the speech I gave as the commencement speaker.

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“I’d like to welcome everybody to this very auspicious day of graduation!  It is not the typical graduation ceremony but we’re trying our best to replicate a typical ceremony. As you can see, we are sitting in the hot sun in uncomfortable clothes, so that’s a start.

Making it to high school graduation means that you have jumped, successfully, through many hoops.  This year’s class got to add a hoop – finishing up their education from home, isolated from friends, stuck with their families, the very people they are so eager to say goodbye to in a few short months.

The Esquer Home Academy in conjunction with Palo Alto High School is however, very pleased to congratulate our graduate.  You have persevered through difficult teachers (not saying if they were at the Esquer academy or one of your other schools), through challenging coaches, through a move to a new school halfway through high school, through injury and changing requirements.  You have persevered through a helicopter mom, a dadgitator [dad who agitates], wireless failures, sharing broadband, and the distracting noise of multiple Zoom calls going on at the same time.

You have made it.

As you head off to college you will take a toolbox with you, a set of skills and knowledge to use on the challenges ahead. I want to point out that you already have way more tools in your toolbox than you know. I guarantee you will forget you know all this stuff. You can call home and we will remind you. As you head out into the world, onto the next part of your journey through life, here is what you are already equipped with.

Persistence. Anyone who can shoot that many basketballs every single day for almost a year has grown a big muscle of persistence. Not to mention how you saved enough money to buy your own car.

Resilience.  Anyone who switches high school before junior year and navigates classes, an injury, and a pandemic and still ends up with a pile of college acceptances and a big scholarship is resilient.

Problem solving. Puzzles, murder shows, getting into the locked trunk of a dead battery car, you can figure out almost anything.

Humor. You have such an ability to make us (and yourself) laugh – this is a superpower. Don’t forget you have it.

Technological Savvy. Your generation has technological savvy that would astound those of us who went to college in the eighties, someone like me who showed up to college with a Smith Corona type writer and had to look at the manual to figure out how to replace the ribbon (for those of you born later, that is like an ink cartridge). Hey that’s ironic, just realized we both entered college with Corona in our lives.  I suspect by the time your brother heads off to college the Corona will be of the malted variety

Time management. I’ve seen you figure out the schedule that works best for you, getting on top of your assignments, fitting in workouts.  I am heartened by your recent purchase of a calendar!

Health management – you know how to work out and stay hydrated

How to do laundry

Cook for yourself.

You might not LIKE doing all these things, but I want you to remember you KNOW how to do these things.

 

And then there are some things I would like to add to your toolbox. Some suggestions, a little bit of the wisdom we staff here at the Esquer academy have accrued over the years. Some of the things we find add to making it not just successfully through life, but joyfully.

Mentors – seek them out. It is like a short cut, an easy button, a pass go and collect $200 card.  Both of the staff here at the Esquer Academy got to where they are only because of some outstanding mentors.

Bravery – it has been said that it is better to regret something done to something not done. Better to say hello to someone even if it makes you anxious than remain isolated. Better to apply for the hard-to-get job even if you don’t get it. Better to dance, awkwardly, than to sit and watch.  As Theodore Roosevelt described, better to be sweaty, bloody and losing in the arena than to be sitting on the sidelines, not really living life.

Let’s put another thing in your toolbox:

Joy of learning – as you enter into the next stage of education my deep hope for you is that you get to enjoy it. I hope that you get to pick classes that bring you alive, that speak to a deep curiosity in you.  Of course there are required classes to get through but if you find you don’t have classes that you are excited to attend, you may need to rethink your major.  It really isn’t about the degree and the job, it is finding the thing that brings you alive because you are going to be doing it for a long time. Degrees and jobs come more easily when you are excited about the work.

Open Minded and it’s sibling, Flexibility – Be willing to be wrong, completely wrong. In the history of the world, of this country, of this family, people have been wrong a lot.  Acknowledge it, consider the new way of looking at something. Hang your hat on being nimble at adjusting.  The people who are weathering this pandemic the best are the ones who are not obsessed with keeping life the same. Take a page from the Zen handbook and realize that almost the only thing you can count on is Change.

Enthusiasm – Respect enthusiasm, your own and that of others. The things that you are enthused about are the guideposts to your life’s happiness.  Unless they are illegal or hurt other people, other people’s opinions on what you should enjoy are not your business.  If you like country music, that is awesome. If you like puzzles that is awesome, whatever it is that brings excitement to your heart, do not let someone step on that.  And don’t step on other people’s enthusiasms either.

Clear Priorities – Know what is truly important and make time for it. You are entering a stage of life where people are, understandably, very career focused, very future focused.  This leads to many more hoops, many more To Do’s. It is only too easy to lose sight of the things that truly matter to you. I would argue that one of the most important things to make time for is relationships.  My deepest joys in life have been my relationships. Also my biggest challenges, but it turns out that challenge cuts a deeper hole for joy. Relationships take time, they take effort, but they are worth every second you give. As Georgia O’Keefe said, ‘Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.’  Be willing to give that time.  It will pay you back a hundredfold

And finally:

God – I hope you stay open to a force larger than yourself, however you define that, whether it is a loving being or the force of gravity that holds you to the earth.  I will leave you with an excerpt from Desmond Tutu’s book Made for Goodness:

My child, I made you for myself.

I made you like myself.

I delight in you.

My heart aches with pity

When you smother joy under the onslaught of busyness.

Then there is barely a minute

To pause and listen for me.

You look for me in the pleasures of life.

Things pile upon things,

Experiences crowd out experiences,

Places run together in a hazy blur,

And still you don’t find that one thing that will satisfy you.

But I am here.

I am as close as a prayer.

I am breathing in your breath.

With each breath you choose, my child, for you are free.

Will you breathe with me the breath of life?

Will you claim the joy I have prepared for you?

Will you seek me out and find me here?

Will you whisper the prayer?

Will you breathe in my breath?

This was the end of the speech, and now, days later, I am struck by how inadequate it seems. I am struck by the immense bravery of every parent who has sent their child off to college or the military or to a new place to live.

We can tell ourselves they are ready.

We can know with every molecule of our body it is the right time for them to go.

And we can still be left lying awake at night wondering what we forget to teach them. Has it been enough? Will they claim the joy God has prepared for them? Have we taught them how?

So, it is with great pride and excitement that I send her off, but it is also with a reminder to myself. I will have to remember to comfort myself with the words of Glennon Doyle. “There is a God. I’m not Her.” I will have to trust that my daughter’s care was never just in my hands. That even though I often forgot, there has been a larger force there all along, and that force is still on the job.

 

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