High School Was Not Your Highlight - A Graduation Speech

I don't think that I'll ever be asked to give a high school graduation speech, but if that happens, I think I know what I will want to say...

Before we drove to my high school graduation ceremony, my dad and I were standing in the driveway waiting for Mom to come out of the house. She was inside triple checking that the party supplies and decorations would be ready for our guests and relatives when we returned from the school gym.

Leaning against the car, we both were watching the "Congratulations Senior!" sign lazily bumping against the house. Dad wasn't much of a talker, so he surprised me when he broke the silence.

"Bud, I sure feel sorry for you."

"What for?"

"Well, high school is over. I just feel bad that your best days are behind you."

Back then I took my dad's word as gospel, but I joked that there was no way that going to a tiny school for four years with the same 40 kids was the the best of anything.

Dad countered, "You got to suit up and play sports, you sang in the choir, and you played in the band. You took art and photography. You did all kinds of other things, and that's all over. Now all you have to look forward to is work."

That's a pretty dismal assessment, and looking back now, I suspect Dad was beginning to show some early signs of clinical depression. But I know there are plenty of people who are not depressed and would have agreed with him.

But why? What's makes the high school years so special? Maybe it's because those four years can also be your formative years, and the rocky passage from adolescence to maturity is so memorable. But I don't know that for sure.

What I do know is that the average person living in the United States can expect to live 79 years. Only four of those years are spent in high school. Mathematically, high school is only five percent of your life.

When was the last time you bragged that you had a great five percent?

How did your first marathon go? Well, early on I had 1.3 miles that were awesome!

Did you have a good spring break? Yes! There were eight hours on Tuesday that were really fun.

In his song "Glory Days," Bruce Springsteen sings, "I had a friend was a big baseball player, back in high school", and later, "Well, there's a girl who lives up the block, back in school she could turn all the boys' heads."  Despite its scant four years, high school still seems to be the reference point most often used when people talk about their "glory days."

If you had a great time in high school, I'm happy for you. If you were academically successful, you deserve a pat on your back. If your activity won an award, you earned a I at solo contest, or your team had a winning season, then "Go J-Hawks!"

But please don't smile too broadly, pat yourself too hard, or cheer too loudly. None of those things would have happened without the help, support, and love of the people who are in the stands right now. You are standing on the shoulders of giants - giants who changed your diapers, wiped away your tears, and made sure you remembered that graduation cap tonight.

Sadly, I can assure you that a successful high school career does not guarantee continued success down the road. You'll have to continue to earn it, and that will be even harder because your giants won't always be there to lift you up.

But what about the students who didn't think they were successful at UHS? For them high school wasn't fun. What about the kids who found the last four years painful? Or even a torment? To you, I say I'm sorry, and I thank you for surviving. That five percent of your life is over, and you also have so much to look forward to.

Happily, like past success, past failure doesn't guarantee future failure. When I was a college junior home on winter break, I bumped into my high school art teacher at church. He asked me what I was going to do after college, and I told him I was thinking about a career in education. Without any hesitation or sarcasm, he asked, "Why do the worst students think they can become teachers?"

I didn't know how to answer him, but I've been a teacher for 27 years, and no one has ever asked me what was my high school GPA.

Do you know what they call the person who graduated from medical school at the bottom of the class?

Doctor.

In about 20 minutes, your high school career, for better or worse, will be over. Like it or not, you'll leave here, and your high school reputation will not follow you. You will have the unique opportunity to reinvent yourself. There is so much power in this opportunity. Please do not waste it.

You can do more than simply giving yourself a different name. Greet tomorrow by acting like the person you want to be. Every new person you meet will believe that is the person you are. Pretty soon you will believe it, too.

Tomorrow can work magic.

On my graduation day, I shook my head and told my dad that he was wrong. High school was certainly not going to be the highlight of my life. And I was right. I don't think I've hit my highlight yet. I know you have not hit yours.

Class of 2019, I hope you're excited that there's so much undiscovered territory in your lives. You still have 80% left to explore.

I wish good luck to whomever you become.