"Time offers no guarantees...just choices...no certainty... just consequences; no predictable outcomes...just the privilege to pursue." - Tim Conner
"Count three to your left and three to your right... One out of each three of you will not be here next year." These were the less than encouraging words spoken during the orientation weekend prior to my entering my freshman year in college in the fall of 1966. A nervous laugh permeated the throng of newly graduated high school seniors in attendance, each dubiously embracing this less than encouraging prediction with a renewed infusion of self confidence that we would not be among the poorly motivated individuals who would find themselves permanently beyond the ivy covered halls of this institution of higher learning come the following fall. A year post that previously delivered dire prediction came the realization that our ranks as a sophomore class had thinned considerably, and with that disconcerting realization came a more pronounced nervous respect for John Steinbeck's profound words, "The best laid plans of mice and men oft' go astray." A realization that has continued to prove prophetic to varying degrees throughout my years on this good earth.
Thus again ushers in this renewed season of great expectations, celebrated in mass by thousands of young men and women who, with a well deserved sense of personal accomplishment, stride confidently forward to accept their hard-won diploma for having successfully navigated a required regiment of circular, ready now to write their next individual chapters of conquest, carefully envisioned to encompass any and all measures of future successes. God bless 'em.
But here is, my fair-headed graduate, a hard truth...an unvarnished reality. No matter what inspiring words may have emanated from your carefully selected commencement speakers, the fact of the matter is that that plate of worldly oysters you intend to consume in your uncharted tomorrows may most likely turn out to be a heaping helping of sauerkraut. As much as you would prefer to believe that you "can have it all," it is best now to embrace the more realistic prediction that your great expectations for unparalleled accomplishment, monetary wealth and renowned acclaim will come with a series of circumstantial eventualities that shall too often tarnish the luster from your dreams to the contrary. Life is like that...and that's not all that bad.
This not to say that one should not strive with every fiber of one's being to wring forth out of each new day the full potential for which that day holds promise, but to realize that one's success in doing so is not to be measured strictly on the basis of materialistic accumulation. Seeking self-fulfillment in this arena is shallow in lasting reward. In the end it is far better to abstain from striving to live a self-serving life and embrace instead a life that is of self-sacrificing virtue...whether a prince or a pauper. "Do not be true to thine own self, be true to the truth." Life invariably will be froth with choices, wherein compromise is inevitable. Uncompromisingly, choose first to do what is right. Be prepared to accept that some failures may prove eventually to be blessings and that some successes may in the long run be detrimental to your overall happiness and well-being. Life is like that too...and again that's not all that bad.
Borrowing from the editorial I read from this weekend's newspaper by Rod Dreher (Dallas Morning News), who quoted from George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, in which she spoke to the heart of how ordinary goodness consistently lived out by ordinary people can, over time, have a profoundly positive effect: "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on un-historic acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number of who lived faithfully a hidden life, and the rest in unvisited tombs." Hardly, I admit, a ringing endorsement of optimism, but a realistic summation that each of you shall soon discover that you alone are not the captains of your own fate, but indeed you are, for the most part, the creators and moulders of your own character. Therein, I believe, lies a nugget of hope in which each of us can build a meaningful life.
Therefore, go forth, young graduates, with all your enthusiasm to change the world and to be counted among the best of the best, but at base live a life of virtue. Therein lies the capacity for enduring greatness. In the final analysis the world may not long remember that you once strode the highways and by-ways of this earth, but the world was indeed a better place for your having done so.
"Whose hands are these that reach into a secret place?
Whose hands are these that brush across my sleeping face
Like quiet waves on silent shores?
Whose hands are these?
These hands are yours.
Whose name is called to find my soul in need of care?
Whose name is called when that need is there?
A name that sings...who's music soars.
Whose name is called?
That name is yours.
Whose eyes are these that sees into this place I live?
Whose eyes are these?
Show me what I've yet to give, that sees beyond unopened doors.
Whose eyes are these?
These eyes are yours.
Where do I go when not a door is open wide?
What can I know when questions asked are un-replied?
I know of one. One is all I need confide to fill that place inside.
Whose hands are these that touch me when my soul is bare?
Whose hands are these that offer all they've got to share
To show the way and stay the course?
Whose hands are these?
These hands are yours.
Whose hands are these?
These hands are yours."
(From Neil Diamond's - Home Before Dark)
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