A chance for all of us to start again
Opinion
Posted By Greg Vandermeulen
Posted 2 months ago
Fresh smiling faces, young men who aren't entirely done being boys, and young women who are still as likely to burst into contagious laughter as maintain their newly won adulthood, line the stages in churches and gymnasiums around the province.
They are celebrating a huge milestone, their high school graduation.
As anyone who attends these functions knows, it can be hard not to be carried away in the rhetoric of it all.
Let's face it, this is an important part of all the graduates lives. They are being urged to live out their dreams, not to settle. They are being encouraged to do what they love and love what they do.
The future is wide open. Anything can happen.
Those of us who have been there often can't help but hear these sentiments with a jaundiced viewpoint.
Our thoughts invariably turn back to our graduation day. We reflect on how successful our own journeys have been and how many of our dreams have come true.
But sitting through the ceremony, (and it doesn't really matter which one) it is also very difficult to keep from being inspired.
Sure I'm no longer in my 20's, and maybe kids, a regular job, and a mortgage have tempered the idealistic streak every high school graduate is produced with.
But why can't tomorrow be the first day of the rest of my life?
Why shouldn't I have a new chapter in my book of life.
And who better to forge a new path than someone who's already walked a while on the old one.
Maybe we could all benefit from a healthy dose of graduation rhetoric.
Read the quotes from principals, guest speakers and valedictorians in our grad section.
Let them soak in as you apply them to your life.
We may think the only job of older generations is to pass on our knowledge and wisdom to the young.
But our job is also to learn, something many grad speakers usually point out. The learning never stops.
This is the time of year we can listen to the words of our youth and apply them to ourselves.
Yes this is a time for graduates to embrace what will be a new part in their lives.
But so it is for all of us. Read those words, and be inspired.
And to the graduates of 2010, thank you.
Your words at graduation ceremonies throughout the region have the power to inspire, not only your classmates, but everyone who stops to contemplate their meaning.
Congratulations, class of 2010.
