Meditation on two graduations
I am running behind posting this week, and with good reason. I had the privilege of speaking for graduation on Saturday morning, and between that and getting final grades turned in the day before, I have been completely tied up. It was quite emotional since it also represented the culmination (almost) of my 40 years of teaching college students. I have one more virtual class in the summer, and then I will retire.
So I thought it might serve you if I shared the text with you. I’ll include the recording of the speech, if you have an interest in seeing and hearing beyond reading, but as a professional speaker, I’ll confess I’m hesitant to share it—not because it was bad, but because the formal nature of the occasion doesn’t represent my usual speaking style. But I think I even found a way to have fun with that. In any case, feel welcome to engage the material in any way you see fit.
We’ll be back to our regular publishing schedule next “issue.”
Signposts on the Road
The last time I stood in a place like this, speaking at a graduation ceremony, I had a tremendous mix of emotions. My oldest son would have been graduating had he not died the previous year. The college had determined that with the classes he had left, he would have met the qualifications to graduate, even if he had been unsuccessful in those classes, and so they graciously granted him a posthumous degree. I remain and will forever be grateful to Dr. Wise and the many others at this college who supported him and me through difficult times, and who made that happen. It shows something significant about this institution.
If I were a painter, I would have created art in his honor. If I were a poet, I would have composed a poem. But I am a writer and a speaker, and so I honored him in a speech as we celebrated with his peers their graduation. Although challenging, I felt privileged to do so.
Today is not hard in the same way, but it is… interesting. You see, we have a group of almost 700 students graduating this weekend, and in a way, I am graduating as well. I will teach one class this summer, and then I will retire after 40 years of teaching communication skills to college students, 34 of them here.
Like you, I have mixed emotions. But because both you and I are graduating, Dr. Johnson invited me to speak today, to share a bit of what he called wisdom. Thank you for that, Dr. Johnson. I’m not sure the administration thought through, though, the implications of having someone speak who no longer depends on the institution for a paycheck. I can say what I want!
And that’s what gives me credibility today. When I tell you what an outstanding, quality institution Pellissippi State Community College is, you can know it’s not because I must.
When I came here full time in 1992, I thought I would only be here for maybe three years. I had planned to finish my doctorate and then move on to a four-year university—something that was much more likely then than it is now. It didn’t take me long to figure out what a diamond Pellissippi State is. People here had and have a genuine commitment to helping their students develop, demonstrate, and document the skills and abilities they need to earn a living and make a life—a 3D education. This might sound like what you would hear as someone recruited you to attend this college, but I think it good to reflect on this today. You see, people tend to take what is in their own backyard for granted. You may not realize the high regard this college has earned throughout the Southeast and throughout the country. Not only have you benefited from that, but you will benefit others as you take what you have learned here out into the world.
Because some of my former students are in the audience today and will, I hope, remember some of what we talked about in class, I have to say that, yes, I taught you to hardly ever write your speech out word for word, because people don’t talk the way they write or write the way they talk, and yet you see me speaking from manuscript today. Let me remind you, I also said there were rare circumstances that called for manuscript delivery, and today is one of them.
It is not only the formality of the event—and it is that, deservedly so, because this is a major milestone for all of us. It is also so it can go into the program for the stage party so they can anticipate what is coming up.
But stage party, maintain some of the mystery: no peeking.
It is also partly to prepare the Sign Language Interpreters. Otherwise, they would have to tackle speakers like Garrison Keillor who would several times mention the Maine town of Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin. I will only mention it once. Well, maybe just once more. Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin.
There’s the first bit of wisdom I might share: have fun with what you’re doing. Incorporate your sense of play into the serious things that you do. Humans are wired to notice threatening things more because those things can endanger survival. But we have so many threatening things demanding our attention through mass and social media, they can overwhelm our ability to cope. You must consciously look for the fun things, the good things.
An old dead Greek guy named Epictetus once said, “It’s not what happens to you, but what you think about what happens to you that determines your experience.” Well, he said it in Greek, but that’s a close translation. I will confess to you that my nature does not lean toward the optimistic. You’ve heard the old saying about seeing the glass a half full or half empty? My nature is to see it as nearly depleted, and any minute now someone will knock it over and I’ll have to clean it up. That will be my first thought, and I can’t change that. But I can choose my second thought, and that power to choose makes all the difference.
Dr. Johnson used the word “wisdom,” and at first all I could think of was this: “The only thing that feels better than going to bed is going back to bed.” I don’t think I could get an entire speech out of that. But I guess I have learned a few useful things over the years, sort of signposts on the road of life—those things we might see as we drive along that we enjoyed long before social media memes. And so, beyond the whole going to bed thing that we’ve already seen are these signposts:
Have fun with what you’re doing. And,
It’s not what happens to you, but what you think about what happens to you that determines your experience.
Let’s see, what other signposts can we see?
Here’s another one:
Make your plans, but hold them lightly.
I’ve already mentioned my original intention to only stay here for three years. Long ago, I read a book entitled Life 101. The authors distinguished between mission and goals. This may or may not reflect what they wrote, but this is my take on it. Goals serve missions. Goals change, but missions don’t. Goals are set, missions are discovered. Goals are achieved, missions never end. Missions are things like “West,” and so my goal might be Nashville, and then Memphis, and then Little Rock, etc., until I find myself back in Knoxville. My mission remains, though, and so my goal may become St. Louis, then Denver, then Seattle, etc.
I was still discovering my life’s mission when I came here, but it’s worth observing: my goal changed, but my life’s mission did not. You may still seek to discover your life’s mission. Give yourself patience and grace. But I can almost guarantee that when you look back over your time here at Pellissippi State, you will see patterns that point to that mission, even if the pattern has not fully resolved yet. Here’s an idea you will find either comforting or frightening. You can classify fiction authors as either plotters or pantsers. Plotters make an outline, know how the book will turn out before they write, know all sorts of things about their characters’ background that may not even make it into the book, etc. Pantsers “fly by the seat of their pants.” They’re more politely called “discovery writers,” since in much of the world “pants” means “underwear.” Discovery writers take interesting characters and put them into interesting situations and then follow them around to see what happens. Most of us blend these in our writing. But in life, we are all pantsers. We’re all figuring it out as we go—including your professors, your administrators, and your parents.
That doesn’t mean you don’t plan. But like most plotters, you find that life very often goes differently, and that’s just the nature of life. Our disabled daughter, who holds veto power over my plans, has been a key teacher of this lesson: Make your plans, but hold them lightly, because they’re going to change.
That leads me to something else that may serve you in the future.
Education is a drawing forth, and we are all self-educated.
The word “educate” comes from the word “educe,” which means “to draw forth.” Some of you may have heard me say this in a New Student Orientation, and so this is a reminder. You may think of education as a sort of “putting into”—you sit in a student desk while the professor talks, you absorb it long enough to spit it back on a test, and you think you’re educated. Information is important, yes, but it’s not education. It’s a tool of education. Those tools draw forth abilities and characteristics such as the ability to learn, to put up with feeling stupid while you learn something you don’t already know, to work with other people, to solve problems, to pick the right problem to solve, to make long-term plans and stick with them until you achieve them, and perhaps most of all, to adapt when plans change. When you do it right, when you make use of the resources we bring you, you draw forth a more effectively functioning human being. If all you have done is jump through the hoop, get your doggie biscuit, and get your card punched, you have not educated yourself. But if you have used your time here to truly educate yourself, it has been an honor to help you achieve that.
I have also learned to value connection before content.
It’s not that the content doesn’t matter. It’s that without the connection, the content won’t matter. You have developed some expertise in something, and you will continue to develop that. Your expertise and experience have significant value. But more importantly, and I say this as an introvert, the connections you form with others matter far more. We introverts need quiet time, alone time, for recharging, but everyone needs to connect. Extroverts need people for recharging, but everyone needs some solitude. However, we live in an age of electronic devices and social media so that we never really connect with anyone anymore, and we never really have time alone. Value both connection and solitude, and value connection over the contents of life.
As you cross this threshold of graduation, remember the image of the graduated cylinder.
You may have used a graduated cylinder in a lab for one of your science courses. For a specific task, you might need to fill the cylinder to, say, 20 milliliters. The cylinder can hold more, but for this task you need 20 milliliters, and you can tell by the markings when you have filled it to that level.
You have reached a significant mark on your cylinder of life. It’s like a signpost that says, “You are here.” You have arrived somewhere, a major arrival. Note that these are not so much mixed metaphors as parallel metaphors, and we’re now moving back to talking about the journey West. When my family and I head West, we almost always stop at Buck-ees in Crossville. And no, they are not a sponsor. It’s just a fact. We stretch and get some unnecessary, unhealthy food and exclaim over the tourist-attraction bathrooms. We rest a bit. And then we climb back in the car and move on. We keep moving West. Eventually, we’ll turn around and go back home rather than travel around the world, but we will keep moving.
We are graduating today, you and I. We will enjoy the arrival, and we’ll almost certainly all get a bite to eat afterward to celebrate. Tomorrow, we will wake up, and we may need to figure out our next destination. I know I will do what I was born to do. I will work on one of the three books I have in progress, and when I finish those, I will write more, because I’ve realized writing has always been part of my West. Our friend and math teacher Dave Vinson passed away a few weeks into last fall semester, a reminder that none of us know when the road will run out, or how much capacity we have left in our graduated cylinder. None of us know. So, wake up tomorrow and use the signposts to keep moving in the direction you were meant to go.
Have fun along the way.
It’s not what happens to you, but what you think about what happens to you that determines your experience.
Make your plans, but hold them lightly.
Continue to draw forth your self-education.
Value connection over the contents of life.
Mark your arrivals, your achievements, and keep on mission, whether that’s discovering it or pursuing it.
I hope you look back on Pellissippi State as a great part of your life’s journey. I know you have been a great part of mine, and thank you.
Donn King is The Confidence Cultivator. He is the author of The Sparklight Chronicles series of business parables (DonnKing.com/Books) and a professor of communication studies (which means “a professor of standing up in front of people and saying stuff”). He’s also a pastor, a speaker, and a communication coach. Reach out to donn@donnking.com to see how he could help you increase your impact, gain influence, and build your career.
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