To the graduating seniors of Culver City High School, allow me to wish you a hearty “Congratulations.” Let nothing overshadow your accomplishment – for an accomplishment is what it is. Four of the most difficult years of your life are behind you; four of the best are about to begin.
Whether you choose to go to college, take a job or wander aimlessly, the years between the ages of 18 and 22 are some of the most formative that you will ever experience. And “experience” is what I would encourage you to acquire. Learn and try new things, travel, meet new people, diverge from the politics and religion of your parents, give up television, change your diet – in short, become more interesting.
High schoolers, by and large, are rather cookie-cutter in nature. Your experience has been much the same as everyone else across the country to a large extent. You are the product of an educational system that has shaped you to become a compliant cog in the aging machinery of a rapidly changing economy.
Know that much of what you have learned will be obsolete in a few years. In fact, much of what you’ve learned already is or never wasn’t. Fear not. The best years of your life are ahead. If they are not, how sad is your life.
Choices never before imagined will be yours to make in the coming years. You may drink, you may leave home (you may do the latter as a result of the former), you may participate as a citizen in our republic, you may opt out. For it is the choices we make that make us who we are. And to this point in life, you have, for the most part, made few and rather inconsequential ones by comparison.
So, celebrate this moment. You are an adult. You can eat all the candy you want. You can watch dirty movies. You can complain about people younger than you. Welcome to the real world. Wear your cap and gown with pride – you’ve earned it. Take it from someone who never did.
