Start Where You Are

Today is the day of days for the Class of 2021 for my across the Chelsea Parade neighbors at Norwich Free Academy with their graduation exercises later this afternoon at Dodd Stadium (fingers crossed for your weather). Congratulations!

As has become traditional on graduation day, I have again NOT been invited or encouraged to deliver any remarks as part of the day's celebrations, but despite popular demand and my spouse's impassioned pleas, I have prepared some anyway, suggesting spite can be a powerful motivator  

Much of what follows may sound familiar; that's probably as much your doing, as it is mine (the difference being that I'm not taking any responsibility (why would I start now?)). If it helps, there will NOT be a test on any of this. You've already been through enough just getting to here. 

The world we are entrusting to you has a few more miles on it than the one we inherited and some of its dents and dings are older than either of us but are now about to become your challenge. I'd say 'good luck,' but you'll need a damn sight more than that, and I hope everyone you've met and everything you've done and experienced, good and bad, up until this moment has provided you with a good start on possessing the tools you'll need to succeed because the alternative is unthinkable.

Don't be overwhelmed by what's ahead or daunted at whatever tasks you'll have before you. As new as all of it is, and will be for you so, too, was it for us, and for those before us. Admittedly, I and my fellow graduates of the Class of 1970 and all the others before and since then have made what must feel like a right hash of just about everything but look on the bright side. If you want to fix the world, you are entering a target-rich environment. 

I, along with everyone else have wished you 'good luck,' but between us, you'll need all of that luck plus agility and mobility not to mention stamina, courage, and insatiable curiosity. 

I and my cohorts when we were you spent a lot of time thinking high school graduation meant we were now entering the real world. Let me save you some steps: you've been in the real world since the day you were born. How much your family and circumstances shielded or prepared you for what's to come is another matter. And as far as preparation goes, if you haven't already figured it out, most of us are making up as we go along. 

I doubt any of you back when you were freshmen could have possibly imagined the world you would live through by the time graduation day arrived so you've learned experience can often be what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. 

Things will start to get faster now as the ride of your life picks up speed. Be what you want to be and take all the time you need to figure that out. I'd remind you of the NFA motto, "Providing Opportunities and Preparing Lives,"  because it's a terrific statement of purpose not just for those Wildcats setting forth this afternoon on their journey but for all those graduating anywhere and everywhere.  

As Neil Gaiman once said (at a graduation he wasn't speaking at either), "Now go and make interesting mistakes; make amazing mistakes; make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules, and leave the world more interesting for you being here." 
-bill kenny