The Pomp and Circumstance Is Over

The pomp and circumstance is over, the ensuing party complete. My son has graduated high school! The last half of the year was a battle, not because the classes were hard, but just getting him to get up and go to school was difficult. Somehow, even though he had zero motivation to be there and he put in as little effort as possible, he managed to graduate Magna Cum Laude. Much to the horror of his guidance counselor at school, he has no plans to go to a conventional four year college. I find this quite refreshing and courageous.

There is a sort of unwritten rule these days that you MUST go to college, especially if you’re considered smart in school. Kids are told from the time they hit middle school that you have to go to college if you want to make a decent living and not end up flipping burgers your whole adult life (no offense intended toward any burger flippers out there). There seems to be no choice; you go to college and you’ll get a great job, or you don’t go to college and you’ll be a loser. Granted, you have a better chance of getting a higher paying job with a college education, but as adults with a brain of our own we know this is not an absolute truth. We all know people who went to college and barely scrape by, and we all know people who never went to college or dropped out and are fairly wealthy. Besides, it’s not all about how much money you make, but about how much you like what you do. That seems to be missing in the discussion today.

When I was a senior in high school, I wanted to take a year off and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It’s not that I didn’t want to go to college, I just didn’t have the money to go where I wanted, as my parents had told me in my senior year that they couldn’t give me any money for college. I also wasn’t sure what I wanted to go for. Well, actually, I did know what I wanted to go to college for, but it wasn’t what my parents, some of my family and friends, most of my teachers and my guidance counselor thought I should be doing. I wanted to be a writer, preferably a sports writer. I thought that would be a great career choice since I loved writing and I loved sports. Plus, I figured if I ever got married, I’d still have to go to the games (Sorry you don’t like me going to the Bruins game, dear, but I have to go. It’s my job!).

I was constantly being told I was too smart to be a writer, that I should be an engineer or an architect because I was very good in math, or I should go into accounting or finance. My thought was that I didn’t want to do any of those things, but I felt pressure from all sides to do something like that. I was also one of those kids that did what my parents told me to do – well, sometimes, but I didn’t like to go against them. I thought if I took a year off, maybe my parents would forget about what they thought I should do and just let me go for what I wanted to do. However, we all somehow came up with the money to pay for my first semester’s tuition and I never took the time to truly explore what I wanted to do.

Fast forward 35 years and here I am doing a job I like but don’t love, and thinking about writing most of the time. And I’ve felt like this for a number of years. So when my kids were small, I swore I wouldn’t push them to do something I wanted them to do or thought they’d be good at, and I would let them choose their career and be what they wanted to be (within reason, of course, I wouldn’t let them be an axe murderer or a drug dealer). So when my daughter told us that she wanted to take some time to figure out what she wanted to do after 3 semesters of college, we totally supported her decision. When she decided to go back to school after a year, we totally supported that decision, too. She’s going for what she wants to do, not what we told her to do. Now my son wants to pursue a career in the music field and I’m totally for it. He may be a musician or a producer – it’s what he wants to do and has a passion for.

I’m proud of both my kids as they make the transition to full-on adulthood. They’re exploring what they want to do with their lives and not letting the masses make them conform to some artificial norm. I wish I had had that kind of strength and courage when I was their age. Who knows, maybe I’d actually love what I do and you’d be reading my book instead of my blog!

Graduation Day

Congratulations to the Class of 2011! Across the United States, people are graduating from high school, college and graduate school, and moving on to the next stage of their lives. Whether graduating with honors or just making it by the skin of their teeth, all graduates should be commended for their accomplishment. Whether young or old, all graduates are to be applauded, for not everyone graduates. My daughter is a graduate for the Class of 2011 and I especially want to commend her, an honor student and an incredible artist, photographer, actress, singer and person. I’m brimming with pride just thinking about her.

As I sat in the field house listening to the various speakers at her graduation, I really had mixed emotions. I was extremely happy for my daughter as she finished up her high school years, knowing that in a few short months she would be leaving us and going off to college. I couldn’t help but notice all the optimism of the day. As each student and guest speaker gave their speech, the graduates were told how they could do anything, that the world was theirs for the taking and that there were no limits except those they put on themselves. They spoke of their accomplishments, how much they had changed and grown over the last 4 years, and how they were now prepared to meet the world head on.

The mixed emotions occurred as I thought back to my own high school graduation 32 years ago. I was never one of those rah-rah, let’s get psyched up kind of kids. Sure I was happy to be graduating, but I kind of felt that the graduation was more for the parents than the kids. As I sat in the hot sun of the football field, I just wanted the ceremony to be over. I can’t remember the speeches or who gave them, but I know they were similar to the ones I heard at my daughter’s graduation. I remember that I really couldn’t get into the “we can make a difference and change the world” speeches. Because honestly, I didn’t think I could make any difference. Sitting in my daughter’s graduation, as I looked back over the last 32 years, I felt that I had fulfilled my own expectations. To say I was a bit melancholy would be an understatement.

The worst part of my graduation was that I totally stiffed my family. As soon as the graduation was over, me and my best friend Tony jumped in his car and raced back to my house. I quickly changed in to some more comfortable clothes and was flying out the door when my parents came home from the graduation. Needless to say, they were a little ticked off at me for not meeting them after the ceremony and at least taking a few pictures. When they asked about taking a few pictures before I left, I made some lame excuse about already changing and having to get somewhere. I never did take any pictures with my parents on my graduation and the only pictures I have from it are a couple of pictures of me walking onto the field in my cap and gown. Me and the parties I was going to with Tony was all that was important to me that day. Not my parents, not my family, not anyone else.

As my daughter’s graduation was winding down, I started to wonder what she would do when it was over. I wanted to be able to take some pictures with my daughter, some of her and my wife, some of her and my son and some with all of us together. My wife and I really wanted to go have a meal as a family, just the four of us. But the question in my mind was would she want to do that? Would she just want to get on to a party with her friends? What if she was just like me and didn’t want to be with her parents?

After finally finding her in the crowd of people outside the school, I am pleased to say that she was very happy to take pictures with all of us. We took pictures of her with her friends, we took pictures of her with my wife and I, and we took pictures of her with her brother. We laughed, we smiled and we had fun. Then we went to a restaurant and had a late lunch as a family. Again, we laughed, we smiled and had fun. I cannot tell you how relieved I was that my daughter was not going to be like me on graduation day.

Later on that night, as I looked back over the day, I realized something. As much as I haven’t solved the world’s problems or come up with a life changing invention, I feel that I have made a difference. My daughter spent her graduation day with her family, unlike me who wanted nothing to do with my own family on that day. That’s a big change from one generation to the next. It really was a great day – both for her and for me. And to my family, I can only say, “I’m sorry for being such a jerk.” – Even if it is 32 years late.