I was asked to deliver the speech at the town's high school graduation this year, and here is what I had to say:
Members of
the school Board, distinguished guests, administrators, teachers and students,
my fellow members of the clergy, parents, guests, and members of Melrose High
School class of 2012, it is my pleasure to be one of the speakers for this momentous
moment in your life. Typically the
graduation speaker is supposed to come up with some of the great wisdom that we
have accumulated in our lives and then convey it to you. Usually these speeches are full of great
clichés such as never give up, you can do anything you put your mind to, follow
your passion, don’t be afraid to fail, or that you’ve got to take it one day at
a time.
Occasionally you’ll get some good advice like Stephen Colbert’s
recommendation that if someone offers you a job, “say yes. You can always quit
later. Then at least you'll be one of the unemployed as opposed to one of the
never-employed. Nothing looks worse on a resume than nothing.” Or there was pultizer-prize winning author
Russel Baker who said his best advice for going out into the world, was “don’t
do it. I’ve been out there, it’s a
mess.” And finally, and probably my personal favorite for it’s sheer
practicality, was Mary Schmich whose advice was to wear sunscreen. Now maybe as a preacher I should include
something like quoting from Philipians and to you to “let your gentleness be
known to everyone… [and] do not worry about anything, but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God.” Or maybe that you can do all
things through Christ Jesus who strengthens you.
The problem with all of these statements, as true as they
might be, is that I have yet to meet a single person who has said “Dude, I
would never have been successful except that at my graduation the speaker told
me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, if only I worked hard, spread my
wings, followed my passion and never gave up.”
It’s never happened, and I suspect it never will happen. I have been to a lot of graduations in my
life, many more than my wife is really happy about, and not only can’t I
remember what was said at any of them, I can only remember who the speaker was
for one of them.
But here’s
the biggest problem, although because you still have to listen to me, it’s more
your problem than it is mine, the simple truth is that we, as graduations
speakers, can’t help ourselves. As soon
as we get asked to speak at graduation we get excited with the opportunity to
talk about all the wisdom we might impart, thinking that your brains are not
already full enough and thinking that you actually care what we have to say,
and I will admit that I am no different, so here is the wisdom that I would
like to impart to you tonight, and my analogy, another requirement for
graduation speeches, is based on this town’s love of its sports teams.
Whatever you do make sure that you always have a cheerleader
and coach in your life. Both are very
important, but for very different reasons, so let’s start with
cheerleaders. You need to have people in
your life who will always cheer for you no matter what. No matter what is going on they are going to
be supporting you, cheering you on, and trying to lift you up. When things are going great their impact and
presence might not seem as important, although they are, but it is when things
are going bad that they are most important because it’s when things are looking
down that others are going to be pessimistic and bleak or tell you that
everything is your fault. But your
cheerleader will always be there cheering you on and telling you can do
it. This is a very important person and
you need to make sure you always have someone like this in your life.
But you can’t base your performance based on what your
cheerleaders are telling you.
Cheerleaders usually are not even facing the field of play when
cheering, they don’t know all that’s going on, and that’s not their job, their
job is to cheer and support the team.
Now before I get into trouble with our cheerleaders and their parents, I
am not demeaning cheerleaders, as I said they are very important and I was even
a yell leader when I was in high school, so I know how important they are, as
well as how much work they put in. and
before you ask why I was on the cheer line, the answer is very simple, I was on
the cheer team because that’s where all the girls were. Cheerleaders are important but you cannot
rely on them to give you an honest and impartial opinion of your performance
and how you are doing, and that is why you need a coach.
Coaches are always focused on your performance, they are
paying attention to you and their job is not only to make you better but to
have you give your best performance every time you go out. They are the ones who know what you are truly
capable of and will push you to excel far beyond what you normally think is
possible. Even if you think you are as
good as you can get, a good coach can always get more out from you, even if you
are the best to ever do whatever it is that you are doing. Peyton Manning, Walter Payton, Annika
Sorenstam, Wayne Gretzky, Lindsey Vonn, Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth, and Ty Murray,
have all had coaches, people who pushed them to be better than they could be by
themselves. Having someone else to
provide you an outside opinion on what’s going, to have someone else push you,
to be honest with how you are doing is extremely important if you ever want to
reach your full potential.
But, it’s also important to find someone who can actually be
a good coach. It’s easy to find people
to tell you you are doing something wrong, and even easier to find someone to
yell at you, but that’s not what a coach is about. Watch Bill Belichick, Pat Summitt, Mike
Krzyewski, Joe Torre or anyone else who is considered at the top of the
coaching profession and pay attention to what they do when their teams are
losing and when they are winning. Lots
of coaches will tear their teams and their players down when they are
losing. They attack when their teams are
at their lowest. Now if you are not
giving your best, or are not trying, then you should be called out, but often
that’s not the case. Instead, the best
coaches will often praise when things are going bad, again if the players are
giving their best, and challenge when things are going right.
Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots has routinely
said that the worst weeks of practice are not the weeks after the Patriots
lose, but instead in the weeks after they win. Why? Because Bill Belechick understands you are in
a much better space to receive criticism when things are going well, and you
need to be lifted up when things are going bad.
There are plenty of people who will be happy to yell at you and break
you down, but they are not good coaches.
Find someone, instead, who is truly concerned about making you better,
who is going to push you, but who also recognizes when the best times to push
are and also when they need to praise.
So my great, wise advice to you is that no matter what you
are doing or where you are, make sure that you have both cheerleaders and
coaches in your life, and if you do that and you never give up, and you’re not
afraid to fail, and if you take it one day at a time, and you follow your
passion, then you can do anything you put your mind to, and make sure to wear sunscreen. Congratulations to you and may God bless you
all.
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