Commencement Speech 2017

Good afternoon friends and family, teachers and staff. Good afternoon Class of 2017.

I’ve been told on a few occasions that the speeches I prepare for our graduation ceremonies can have moments that are possibly too depressing, that they sometimes go against the spirit of what today is, which is a day of joy and celebration.

After reading some of my previous graduation speeches…I get it. To prepare for today, I re-read some of them and I understand how they have these moments that can be considered a downer, that aren’t exactly setting the happy tone that today deserves.

…but I don’t care. I am a teacher and as far as I’m concerned you haven’t officially graduated yet so I have time for a few more life lessons…and I’d like to offer some hard reality for a minute or two.

Here’s what’s going to happen in a few minutes when this ceremony is over and you walk back out of those doors you came in through: your childhood, to a big extent, will be over.

For most of your life and certainly these last 12 years, you have had adults look after you to some extent or other. Your parents, your guardians, they did the best they could to provide for you and keep you out of harm’s way, to keep clothes on your back and food on your plate.

Throughout your career at school, you had teachers and teacher assistants and counselors and principals and assistant principals and nurses and a whole host of other adults that did the best they could to make sure you grew and got an education. We tried to move you in a direction where you could eventually set yourself up to make something big for yourself.

We tried, in other words, to prepare you for the part of your life that will begin within this next hour. These helpful hands in your life — your family, your teachers and school staff — we’ve all tried our best to prepare you for the part of your life that begins today.

As of today, however, at least for us as your teachers and school support staff, our job is done. We will no longer be officially around to hold your hand. We will no longer be there every weekday to remind you to go to class, to remind you that you have work you need to finish and turn in, to remind you that you have responsibilities that you need to uphold.

We will, in other words, no longer be around to treat you like a child. That’s over with. That’s done.

You may be thinking, “Well thank goodness! It’s about time all of you got off my back!” And you’re right; that is indeed a good thing!

However, here’s what that also means: the fact that we’re done with you means that whatever becomes of your life after today will primarily depend, more than ever, upon you.

If there’s one theme that I found in my old speeches it’s that this moment is THEE most important moment of your life. I don’t mean to exaggerate here; I sincerely mean this. Whatever it is that you decide to do over these next few years will immensely impact what the rest of your life will look like.

…and the main person that can mold what the rest of your life will look like is you.

You can continue on to a college or a university or not. You can go out and get a job or not. You can sign up for a trade school or to serve in the military…or not. From this moment on, what becomes of your life is primarily going to be up to you and no one else.

Because of this, that feeling you have right now of “Finally, I’m done!”, I’m sorry to say, is going to be very short-lived. Your “I’m done” is about to become “It looks like I’m only getting started”.

…and while I’d love to say that the road ahead for all of you is going to be great and fulfilling and filled with joy, that wouldn’t be true either, not completely, anyway. In whatever road you decide to go down — whether it’s in your educational life or your career life or your social and personal life — you will fall and you will encounter roadblocks and stop signs and dead ends and failure.

You…will…mess…up. Each and every one of you.

…but in the road to figuring out who you are and who you will become, there really is no better teacher than failure.

Each of you will fail. I have failed. Every person on this stage and in this auditorium and outside this auditorium has failed. That fail, however, only becomes true Failure, with a capital ‘F’, if you don’t learn from it and become someone better because of it.

This is true whether you’re taking that difficult class in college, stuck in a dull or dead-end job, or find yourself in a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend who is keeping you down and is no good for you or your future.

You’re going to fail. You cannot and will not escape this fact of life.

So my final lesson is this: become a better person when failure happens. Becoming a better you is the sole purpose of failure. That’s the only reason failure exists to begin with.

..and that, boys and girls, is the best lesson you could ever learn in this life.

My hope is that you learn this lesson for all of us, your former teachers. My hope is that you learn this lesson for your family and friends out there. Most importantly of all, however, is that you can take this lesson and learn it and keep it for yourself for all your years to come.

Can you do that for all of us? Most important of all, can you do that for yourself? Good job, everyone!

I’m very proud of all of you! Thank you and congratulations!