Thank Goodness It's Monday #409

LET THE COMMENCING COMMENCE

 

'Tis the season. So let’s start by defining our terms:

 

Commencement [com•mence•ment (kəˈmɛns mənt)]

1. A beginning; a start.

2. a. The ceremony of conferring degrees or granting diplomas at the end of the academic year.

2. b. The day this ceremony takes place.

Etymology:  [1225–75; Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French]

What’s kinda interesting to me in this “graduation” season is that there’s a Janus-like quality to this time of passage, ending and beginning anew; looking both forward and a glance or two back at the significant time that precedes it.

So, gathered together for arguably the last time as a coherent group with whole layers of education and tradition in common, students and their preceptors attempt to summarize the experience with words of wisdom and set individuals off on the next phase of their voyage of self-discovery and experiencing life with words of inspiration.

What a crock! (OK, maybe not quite that angry but …)

 

• What life lessons more powerful than those of the life of its founder, Thomas Jefferson, will Steven Colbert impart to University of Virginia graduates?
• Can you imagine that whatever Oprah Winfrey shares with Harvard grads will really matter to them collectively in the span of their careers?
• While it’s no doubt thrilling for Ohio State, Morehouse and the U.S. Naval Academy to get visits from the sitting President, how many will look back from the, say, 20-year-distant future and be able to say their response to that 20 or 30 minutes of “address” redirected their lives completely?
• Maybe, just maybe, the message the Dalai Lama delivers at Tulane will change more than a few lives.

It’s a tough world after all. If they’ve been paying attention members of the Class of 2013 probably know that authoritative sources report nearly half of the Class of 2010 hold jobs that don't require a bachelor's degree and that 38% have taken jobs that don't even require a high school education.

And the upcoming newly-minted grads need not be business school alumni to know these trends have helped drop the median wage for college graduates significantly since 2000.

And if they’ve been job hunting they don't need scholarly experts telling them that 284,000 of the grads who came before them are making minimum wage.

Just a little more “rant.” My cynical take here has been narrowly focused on a vision of high-achieving grads from noteworthy post-high-school institutions. The “cream of the crop” if you will.

 

What about students from lesser programs?

What about punishing student loan obligations?

What about newly minted High School grads?

 

As the 2013 commencing commences we all need to comprehend the lessons of learning.

 

Commencement Day -- and the words of wisdom that will be shared in the course of it -- are no substitute for an understanding that we – each and all, no matter our “class” or level of formal education – live lives that require dedication to life-long learning.

TGIM Takeaway: The beginning and ending parts of the seasonal exercises now commencing are –

One day only. It’s a reward. A (presumably) well-earned celebration to mark a passage in life. And what folks tell you that day, while (again, presumably) well-intended and meant to motivate –

 

Isn’t “gospel.” It’s a road sign … directional arrow … a bit of useful, motivational information for a brief part of the journey ahead.

 

That it comes from a celebrity source, and may have been crafted for them and with them by a highly skilled and well-compensated team of presentation preparing professionals,  does not necessarily imbue it with any power greater than a “lesser” origin.

 

So today’s TGIM ACTION IDEA is a commencement message sourced from one of these lesser places.

One of the more intriguing commencements I have attended over the years featured an address by a great southern state university’s law school’s class valedictorian.

My memory of his brief presentation to the students, faculty and friends and family assembled goes like this:

Travis had a reputation among his classmates as a hardworking student, but socially quiet.  What he would say at the ceremony was a mystery. So when, after several typically musty speakers, he rose to deliver his address, attention was a bit sharper.  After properly opening with the obligatory acknowledgments, he promised to take only two minutes of everyone's time and got to the heart of his thoughts.

 

He started by acknowledging that he had had difficulty deciding what “wisdom" to impart.

• For inspiration he consulted quote books and speaker's guides but came away uninspired.
• He reviewed the cases and law he had studied and found nothing he felt appropriate to the moment.
• In fact, he said, he had no idea what hard-gained understanding-born-of-study he could share until that very morning when he sat at the kitchen table, having a student's breakfast of made-from-packaged-dough biscuits.

There, on the newly opened roll of refrigerated biscuit dough, he spotted the lesson he knew he and his fellow graduates had in common and, he felt, was worthy of the occasion.

 

The package, he said, cautioned –

 

"KEEP COOL."

 

This advice, he was sure, would stand them in good stead all the rest of their lives. 

And, he continued after a dramatic pause, it went this succinct wisdom one better by advising –

 

"BUT DO NOT FREEZE."

And with that he thanked all assembled and returned to his seat.

Me too.Carpe diem coolly. 

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S. “Education. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.” Writer and wit Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) provided that definition in his oft-quoted work, The Devil’s Dictionary.