Neither place upon yourselves unexceptional expectations, nor bow to the god of Playing It Safe. And do not spend your days as many do, waiting for their lives to change. Rather, declare loudly and without apology: “I am here, world! I have come to change you.”
It’s no small thing to change the world, but it is a small life that does not even try. Change need not make headlines. Most important changes never do. Change comes instead from the little things you do at home, at work, or at worship. It comes from the letters you write to the paper, or the calls you make to your politicians. It comes from the way you treat the check-out clerk, the receptionist, and the drive-through teller.
Live your life with the knowledge that our actions send forth ripples, and that it is a measure of our days whether those ripples make waves that change the world for the better.
Live your life not as spectators on the sidelines, but as players on the field. Live your lives not as conformists, doing what others do and accepting what others say. Instead, live your lives out loud! Refuse to ever hang up your ideals, put away your enthusiasms, quiet your questioning spirit, or close the lid on your indignations. Heaven knows there are already enough people who’ve done so.
Your future promises more possibilities and more challenges than those experienced by any generation before you. You most certainly will not be bored, lest you choose to be. So much that is impossible you will live to see made possible. So much that is unimaginable awaits for you to imagine it. Graduate, the future is something you make instead of enter. It isn’t awaiting your arrival – it is awaiting your energy, your passion, and your creativity.
And so today, as you turn your thoughts to this awesome future, know that your life’s learning has not ended, only just begun. The truly educated, as someone wise once said, never graduate. So ask, and listen well. Use the voice that is great within you to raise uncomfortable questions, and speak uncomfortable truths. Go forth on this earthly journey hungry, with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, joy, meaning, and, most of all, truth.
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