Graduation Speech. From me to you.

Graduation Day a long, long time ago…

Every year I post my favorite graduation speech that somebody gave. Oprah at Harvard. Jeff Bezos at Princeton. I’ve done it for many years. But now I’m in my eighth decade, and maybe I’m entitled, maybe I have enough life experience to give my own.

I always love a graduation speech. I am in awe of things others have learned over their lifetime that I should pay attention to. Their experience is not mine, and I love to add their notes to the path I’m traveling. I used to love the one that said, Don’t forget to wear sunblock. Until I didn’t. I’m older now, and new information about sunblock says that maybe the contents of sunblock is worse than the sun. Besides. It’s sort of trite right? Which shows you can grow beyond some of what you thought was great before.

I can’t believe I’m now in my 8th decade. For the first time, it occurs to me that it could be my last decade, although it hasn’t been confirmed yet. Living till 80 is icing on the cake rather than a foregone conclusion.

Wow, I think to myself. Maybe it’s time for me to look back and marvel about what I’ve learned rather than what others have learned. Why not? Every year I know people who are graduating from college or high school, and I always write them a letter. Maybe it’s time for my words of wisdom rather than just dots of encouragement about what I’ve seen in them so far.

So here you have it. Things I might put forth for your consideration as you move forward on your path.

Time is the greatest gift. And, your worst enemy.

Treat it as both. Know that when you’re with somebody you truly care about, those hours or days, or even weeks, won’t come again. They need to be marked with your attention. Your appreciation. Your acknowledgment to them of how grateful you are to spend this time together.

And it goes by so fast. And it can’t be filled with do-overs or “let me go back and check that,” because it doesn’t wait for anyone. So don’t waste it. Treat it with respect. No, I take that back, treat it with awe. And don’t go through the trash too much. Yes, the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason. You look in the rearview mirror so time spent can be evaluated, but not dwelled in. There’s no time.

Your body actually can’t be thrown out and re-purchased.

It’s not like a new coat replacing a worn-out one that you loved all those years. We think you can. Oh, the marvels of modern medicine. But I know now that my body was my best friend. I never noticed it. It never bothered me enough to notice it. It never gave me one moment of worry. And I treated it with such disregard. Not disdain. Not dislike, although I fell for those shiny magazine covers that, thank God, no longer sit in people’s homes and on bedroom nightstands pointing aqusitory fingers at us.

But now I realize that I owe it so very much. And I am filled with thanks and a little bit of regret. But the thing is, it’s like my beloved dog. It loves me anyway and does its best again and again, even when I give it too much sugar or not enough sleep or zero exercise. Pay attention to it. Talk to it. Listen to it, it has much to say. And realize that, like nothing else in your life, it is with you every single second of every single day, and you need it to be well cared for to be the best you you can be.

Work to be curious.

Because of technology and so many other things in this very busy world, curiosity is starting to take a back seat. Instead, whatever comes in front of us is what we take as ours, rather than what we are questioning. Ask questions every day. Sometimes your curiosity will grow out of the fact that you were disciplined enough to ask questions. Ask people what they’re curious about. Most will look at you cross-eyed. Right now, I’m curious about trees. Who the fuck knew? Go ahead, look it up. How trees communicate with each other and what they feel. How they care for each other. You will be bowled over, I promise.

The voice in your head is not always telling you the truth.

I know. I know. That’s the one voice in my life that I always believed. It’s my voice. Of course it’s telling the truth. I would know if it weren’t. But it’s not. It’s designed by our brilliant brain to keep us safe based on past experience, so if a boy hurt us in the seventh grade, we’ll keep looking for the same behavior, even if it’s not there, from the boys who come after, just so we can run before the hurt happens again. I know it makes no sense, but there you have it. And once you know about it, you can quiet it. You can choose the positive thought over the negative one that doesn’t have a bad intention, but might leave you not the better for it.

Every day, laugh and hum.

Just do it. Because I said so. If you do it for seven days, you’ll know why.

That’s it. I could go on and on, but I’ve also learned that sometimes more is just more, not better.