Graduation

I have two major unfulfilled goals in life. First, I want to get an article published in the Reader's Digest. Any article will do. Second, I want to give a speech at the graduation ceremony of my high school. I could probably have done this in 1959 Ð'- I was student body president and the best stand-up comic on campus Ð'- but I decided not to. I now want to make up for lost time and a lost opportunity.

So, on the outside possibility that some editor at Reader's Digest will read this and then decide to publish it, which will then catch the attention of the principal of Mira Costa High School, I have decided to give my speech here. (Note: "mira costa" is not Spanish for "mired in costs." The Spanish phrase for "mired in costs" is "graya davisa.")

Before I begin my speech, I want to take a quick survey. I direct this question to the guests, not to the graduating seniors.

"How many of you recall clearly your high school graduation Ð'- I mean before the all-night party?"

Please raise your hand.

Leave your hands up, please. Now I have a second question.

"How many of you recall anything from the speech delivered by the distinguished orator who was brought in by your principal to inspire you on gradation day?"

If you don't recall anything he said, put down your hand.

Now, for those of you who still have your hands raised, I have one more question:

"How many of you were so inspired by a remark made by the distinguished orator that it in some way shaped your life?"

If you cannot think of anything, please put down your hand.

Now take a look around the stands. How many hands do you see?

Thank you for helping me conduct this important survey of public opinion.

Now for my speech. . . .

THE ALARM CLOCK OF LIFE, AND WHY WE HATE IT

I want to thank Principal McCormack for inviting me to give this graduation speech, a speech which I feel certain will inspire today's graduating seniors for the rest of their lives, as graduation speeches invariably do, as we have just seen.

Anthropologists can tell you what high school graduation is: an initiatory rite. It is a major point of transition which, for those of you who will not go on to college, will mark your transition officially to adulthood. For those of you who do go on to college, high school graduation marks a major point of transition for your parents: from borderline financial solvency to monthly panic. You, on the other hand, can postpone your transition to adulthood for another four years Ð'- or maybe even ten, if you follow my academic path and go to graduate school.

But maybe you don't think of yourself as an adult yet. Maybe you're wondering when the bell will go off that announces: "Adult here. The world is now free to kick the daylights out of me."

I know when the bell went off for me. Maybe you have heard a similar bell. Maybe you didn't recognize it for what it was. I'm here to tell you: "That was it. It's too late to turn back."

I was fortunate. I heard that bell very clearly. Of course, in high school, you hear a lot of bells, all day long. One of the marks of your transition to adulthood is that you won't have to listen to these bells any more, unless you come back as a teacher. But I'm talking about an internal bell. You will hear this bell more and more as you grow older. I suggest that you pay attention to it early, preferably the first time you hear it.

I can remember it with amazing clarity. It was the clearest bell in my high school experience. I was sixteen years old, just about to turn seventeen. I was a senior. It was election day. I was running for student body president. It was lunch hour. I was in the same room where I had been waiting, one year earlier, for the results of another election. I had been running for president of the high school honor society, the California Scholarship Federation. I had won that election. One year later, I was wondering if I would win this election, too.

It seemed to me that I had been waiting for the results of that other election only a few weeks earlier. I my mind, the time had been dramatically compressed. The other election had taken place exactly one year earlier. I could date it easily, yet it seemed so recent.

At that moment, my internal bell went off. To mix metaphors, it hit me right between the eyes. Time was moving very fast. It wasn't just moving fast; it was moving like a freight train, and I was caught on a trestle over the Grand Canyon. It was time to start running.

At that moment, I recognized how little time I had left. I knew how soon I would be an old man. And now I am an old man. Yet I can hear that bell in my memory so clearly.

I mark my transition to adulthood on that day. I won the election, but winning that election was not the most important event of that day. The most important event had taken place a few hours before, around noon, when the bell went off in my self-awareness.

I began hearing the clock ticking.

THE TICKING CLOCK

Over 250 years ago, Benjamin Franklin wrote a clever aphorism:

"A child believes that 20 dollars and 20 years can never be spent."

Actually, he didn't say 20 dollars. He said 20 pounds. Back then, 20 pounds were worth about $3,300 in today's money.

What Franklin wrote then is still true. A child thinks of $3,300 as a lot of money. He thinks of 20 years as a lot of time. The child is wrong.

You may already have figured out that $3,300 is not very much money. But you may not have recognized emotionally that 20 years are not a lot of time. Your internal clock may not have rung its alarm bell. For most people, it goes off sometime between the ages of 17 and 23.

When your internal clock goes off in your head, pay attention to it. I regard the ringing of that alarm clock as marking the first major transition to adulthood. Some people hear it later than others. Others hear it, but then ignore it for years.

When you hear it and then act on it, you have become an adult. But if you roll over and whack the snooze button another time, then you haven't become an