Thursday, May 16, 2013

Pomp and Circumstance is my favorite part of a graduation ceremony.  It seems to set the perfect tone for the radical departure from the status quo that graduation is.  I attended the graduation of Chugiak High School this evening, and the rest of the ceremony was much like most other graduations I have attended.  The speakers tried to make poignant comments about what has happened in their scholastic career and how that has prepared them to face the future.  These talks, as long as you don’t invite a politician to politicize the event, have run a very narrow track since graduations began.  Not that they aren’t accurate or that they aren’t warranted: Just that there really isn’t much new that they could say that hasn’t been said before.  Now I have had some experience with graduations.  I, myself, graduated from the 8^th. Grade, High School, Community College, University, Dental School, General Practice Residency, Master’s Program, and Orthodontic Residency.  Besides those ceremonies,  I have attended my 6 children’s graduations from High School, and 5 from college, not to mention  2 sons-in-law’s college graduations as well as assorted siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews.  Tonight’s graduation was to congratulate the 7 youth from my ward who completed their High School careers.   For me, apart from enjoying Pomp and Circumstance again, the highlight was in the handshake and  the hug of someone who has completed one part of his or her life to embark on a completely new and unfamiliar tack.  It is tempting for them to think that the next part of their lives will be scary and that the best part of their lives has already been lived.  As someone who has been there, my observation is that the scariness lasts only until the 2^nd day of college or work or whatever’s next, and accommodation to the new circumstance becomes the new status quo.  And mostly, the best part is still ahead.  I pity those folks who so revel in their high school years that they believe that they have already lived their best moments.  One’s best moments are always in front of you, and always what you make of them.  Your memories of times past may be fond, but that doesn’t excuse the laziness of believing that you can’t see a better future ahead.  High School was all I knew at the time, but looking through the lens of my life since, I would never choose to go back and do it again.  Life has been so much better since that living it again with the knowledge what was to come would be living perdition.