6-3-26

Timmons Tries Grad Speech . . . Again

It’s become my annual rite of frustration – waiting by the phone this time of year for schools to call. Why would they call you ask? Simple. There are thousands of schools and they all need a graduation speaker. I humbly and happily volunteer my services – ready, willing and semi-able to share a lifetime of experience, wearing our Weejuns from one coast to another.

A newspaper man who has seen everything from Baby Jessica in the well to an astronaut dealing with friends lost in a tragedy to mass shootings, sports championships, international business deals and beyond. From the highs to the lows, a career covering news has enabled me to see – if not it all – then at least an awful lot.

Who better to pass along the knowledge of lessons learned then?

And yet here I sit. Year after year. Watching a phone that never rings.

Oh it did ring once. And I am truly grateful to the good folks from Diapers to Diplomas Daycare. Yes, it may have been a last-minute cancellation and I may not have been their first (or second, or third) phone call. But we connected and I hope those little ones remember the wisdom shared that day (even if a couple of the graduates had to miss part of the speech for a change in diapers).

So, as not to let the moment pass, I’m once again (for purely charitable reasons) printing the text of this year’s speech. Perhaps it’s better this way. No one has to sit on hard bleachers, sweaty auditoriums or listen to 450 names being called in order to just hear one . . . things swim parents have been doing for years).

Just let me clear my keyboard . . . ahem.

Distinguished Colleagues, Educators, Parents, Relatives, Friends and especially, soon-to-be graduates, it’s my pleasure to be here today.

In a very short period you are going to rise, walk up to this stage and accept a diploma which you have spent 12 years working for (or if some of you are like me, maybe 13 or 14). Once you have that parchment in hand and turn the tassel on the silly caps you’re wearing you will have crossed off one of those monumental moments in life. Truth to tell, there aren’t that many. Graduations, marriages, births of children, sometimes a professional achievement, deaths . . . things that will stay with you all your days.

Up to this point your life has been pretty full of those sorts of things. You turned 10 and for the first time were in double digits. You became a teenager (and your parents sprouted a few gray hairs). You got your drivers license (and they got more gray hairs). You went to your first prom (gray hairs started falling out) and you are here today.

Just so you know, there won’t be as many big deals going forward. And just so you know, the ones ahead are much bigger.

So enjoy this now and let me share a few points of view that will serve you well if you remember them.

First, we did you wrong. Our parents (your grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond) did a wonderful job in leaving us a world that was better than the one they found. We haven’t. This world is the most divisive since either the Civil War, the 1960s or both. My generation has screwed this up for a while. From those of us who grew our hair long in the ‘60s and didn’t trust anyone over 30 to the current left and right divide, we haven’t done you any favors.

And despite the fact that you THINK you know everything today, you will quickly learn lots of new things. One of them, I hope, is how to get along better than we have. Let me share one little tiny secret that folks like Stephen Covey have said for decades. Listen first. Our grandparents used to drill into us that the Good Lord gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Somehow that didn’t stick with us, so here’s hoping you do better.

After becoming better listeners, try to understand one thing. The person(s) you are listening to has every right to their opinion as you do yours. Agree? Great! Disagree (and this is where the problem starts)? Then understand two things. You don’t have to convince them of what you see as the error of their ways. And two, you can agree to disagree. Interrupting them, talking louder and in general dismissing their point of view, doesn’t do anyone any favors. Not you, not them, not the world around you.

When it comes to thinking, let me share a quote from a guy who made gazillions of dollars, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. This is something he said at a commencement speech at Grand Valley State University. “You should always try to think different. Don’t follow the same steps as a million other people. Think, is there something I can do a little different?”

He made gazillions. I haven’t. Listen to him.

And speaking of Apple, computers and technology, here’s another life lesson. Stop listening to the morons on social media. A misfit? God bless you. We need misfits. Think the folks who became gazillionaires were misfits? Think the athletes who earn gazillions now were misfits? Think the greatest minds in the world are misfits? They didn’t spend all their waking hours fretting over what their friends and so-called friends thought. They followed their own path and are enjoying the rewards of that today.

While we’re on that topic, don’t be afraid of hard work. No matter what anyone else tells you, an awful lot of life isn’t that hard to understand. If you want something, work for it and have realistic expectations. If you want to be a star athlete – work on and practice the skillsets needed. Day after day. Over and over. If you want to lose weight. Eat less and exercise more. Day after day. Over and over. If you want to be rich, learn about money and do what it takes. Day after day. Over and over.

Yes sweethearts, there are shortcuts in this life. And God bless those who have found ‘em. But for MOST things, it’s not complicated. It’s a process. Put in the time.

(For those of you starting to fidget, relax. I’m not that far away from being done. Besides, you’re not sitting on a hard bleacher in an un-air-conditioned gym.)

A couple more lessons to take with you:

AI is like every other BIG DEAL that came along – the wheel, the engine, gun powder, atomic energy . . . they all had the potential to destroy our way of life. And to be sure, some have had more positives than others. The key is not the big deal. They key is what we do with it. Perhaps AI has the potential to be a bigger deal, one way or the other. But hey, you’ll figure it out . . . or you won’t. Either way, you’ll deal with the outcome.

Sit tight, just a couple more points.

Sexes – you don’t get to choose. It is what it is. You are what you are . . . genetically. But if you don’t like who you are personality, that’s the great thing. Change. You control that. No one else. No. One. Else.

Bad breaks. Part of life. You aren’t owed very much. Most of what you are going to get from here on out you will earn. Good, bad or indifferent.

And lastly, I am seeing studies and reports that tell me you guys have lower rates of cigarette smoking than us idiots before you. I even read that you like malls, and human contact. Outstanding. Not sure how we let that get away, but we did.

So go forth young graduates. Go claim this world. It’s yours. Do better than we did. Not only did we not give you something better than we got, but we lost the penny as well. Here’s hoping you do better on both counts.

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at ttimmons@thepaper24-7.com.