I recently had an occasion to read one of my earlier columns on a local radio show. The focus of my column was a commencement address for recent Lake County graduates and when I was selecting my column for the show, it occurred to me that even though nearly 10 years have gone by, this is advice that — personally — I think every graduate ought to have.
I think one of the biggest mistakes that you can make with the rest of your life is to believe that you stopped learning once you donned your cap and gown and were handed that piece of paper. Instead, I believe that you will continue to change and adapt throughout the rest of your life.
Some of you will go to college — either a two- or four-year institution. Some of you will take on other adult responsibilities, like enlisting in military service, raising a family or working outside the home. Some of you will try to postpone responsibility for as long as you possibly can.
But just as your experiences in high school shaped who you are today, the decisions you make today will shape your future selves.
During the years that followed high school, I changed my idea of myself nearly every single day as I obtained new information. High school was a painful memory that I preferred not to dwell on and one of my earliest revelations was that the rest of the world is not like high school.
Since I was among only 33 graduating high school seniors in a student population of 300, I felt as if my differences were painfully exposed.
Arriving at junior college, among a population that had to number thousands, I was refreshingly invisible. The reputation I had in high school had failed to travel with me.
After I completed my schooling and went to work for the Record-Bee, I learned that I was able to work as a member of a team within the company”s newsroom. I continue taking pride in producing “history that is written on deadline,” to paraphrase copy on the jacket of a book of columns by George F. Will.
Volunteering in community offered additional insights into ways that I could be of service. Equally valuable have been insights into my character that other people have given me.
Like me, you will have the opportunity to reinvent yourself every day as you adapt to meet new challenges and new expectations. Each choice will bring its own consequences, so be sure to choose wisely.
If my selves were to meet across time, would the misfit teen-ager recognize the person I was when I wrote that first column? Would she appreciate the excitement I felt to be following in the footsteps of my heroine, Molly Ivins?
Ten years later, the person I am today has insights into previous difficulties that my earlier selves did not have.
Sometimes I imagine what it would have been like if a future self had managed to go back and clue me in.
I know, I know — maybe I read too much science fiction. Selves aren”t supposed to meet anyway because it”d mess with the space-time continuum.
I could never have imagined, back in high school, how my life would turn out today. The differences between the person I am and the person I was span a distance measured not only in years but in accumulated experience.
Contact Cynthia Parkhill at cparkhill@clearlakeobserver.com.
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