By Alyce Wilson
(Standard-Journal,
May 22, 1998)

Soon, the football fields and auditoriums of area high schools and universities will echo with commencement speeches.

Commencement speeches always echo. If you took a commencement speech, wrapped it in terry cloth and stored it in a velvet-lined box in a soundproof booth, it would still echo.

Over all that echoing, plus your own thoughts (which may range from wondering if anyone can read the message on your cap to "I wish Dad would get that videocamera out of the principal's nose"), it can be next to impossible to hear what's being said.

So, for those who may get distracted during their commencement ceremony, here's some advice I wish I'd heard on my graduation day.

* Don't be afraid of failure. Right now everyone's telling you how much you're going to achieve. If your field is physics, for example, you probably think you need to beat Stephen Hawking's theories. By your 10th reunion. Or if your field is, say, music, you probably want to release an album better than Sergeant Pepper. By your 10th reunion.

Trust me, I've been through it. My 10th year reunion is coming up. I, like Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, feel like showing up with a completely invented self to impress everybody's pants off. But believe me, the last thing you should do is show up at that reunion feeling sorry for yourself. That's what whiny losers do (I challenge you to find that phrase in an echoey commencement speech).

Things may not take off as soon as you planned. You may change directions or get sidetracked. But it's like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

The real-life Kudrow felt like a loser at 27, hanging out in New York City with her unemployed actor friends, like Conan O'Brien. Eventually, she found her place, and some new "Friends," as well. In a recent interview, she said her biggest lesson in life was not to fear failure.

* Don't measure yourself by your parents or other people's success. Just because your Mom got married at 25 and had three kids by the age of 30 doesn't mean you have to. Just because you father started his own business at age 18 doesn't mean you have to. Just because you hear, along the way, of classmates winning Emmy awards, or dancing on MTV, or exploring the Australian outback, doesn't mean you have to. Your path through life is your own. Explore it your way.

* Don't be afraid of change. "I'm not!" you scream. "I'm getting out there, doing new things, meeting exciting people." Of course you are. But five years from now, what happens when you decide you'd rather be a minister, or an ice-cream maker, or a poet? What happens when you decide your spouse treats laundry nicer than you? Or when you decide you're allergic to Pennsylvania? Or New York? Or California? Don't be afraid of change when it's hardest.

* Laugh. Not right now! This is serious stuff! I'm trying to tell you how to have a happier ... Cut it out! You're giggling all over the newspaper. I'm trying to teach you how to ... Look, if you're going to keep laughing, I'm just going to have to move on to ...

* Be proud. Congratulate yourself on your accomplishments, no matter how small. Your parents were right, graduation is a big accomplishment. But so is balancing your checkbook, or planning a great vacation, or making a project work, or opening those little drink containers without spilling any on yourself. OK, that's going a little too far.

* Relax. Stuck in a traffic jam? Don't forget to smell the air coming through your window, its hot tar or its green balm. Maybe you'll get an idea you wouldn't have had or see a sunset you wouldn't have noticed. In the words, once more, of that great sage of our times, John Lennon, "There's no place you can be that isn't where you're supposed to be."

It's easy.

Copyright 1998 by Alyce Wilson

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