Graduation Advice
I was recently discussing with a friend the typical advice we give to graduates…and the folly that advice often includes. I thought I would share a few examples here and perhaps offer a viable alternative.
Be like a duck; calm on the surface but paddling like the dickens underneath.
This is a good one, isn’t it? It’s cute, worth a chuckle, and every one of us can picture it well. We’ve all seen that duck gliding seemingly effortlessly across the water, nary a ripple around it, and wondered, how does she do it? Once we discover the secret, those rapidly flapping, frantic feet below the calm we are impressed; and so naturally we tell our teenagers preparing for the next stage of life, “Be like that!” But what are we actually telling our graduates? Put on a happy face. Don’t let anyone actually know how your life is going and how difficult it is to navigate your way through the contours of this life. Put on a happy face, lie if you have to, bury your emotions and your fears deep down, and even if you have no earthly idea where you are going, keep going. Is it a wonder that so many youth end up years later aimless and we wonder what went wrong? For years it has seemed like everything was fine, why is it all of a sudden that their legs seem so tired they can’t take another step!
And so I say, be like a goose taking to flight. Flap you wings as hard as you can for all to see. Kick and grunt and tumble across the surface of the water and just at that moment when it seems like clearly flying is not for you and we have all had a good laugh at your expense we will stand in awe and watch as your soar heavenward. Life is hard young ones. It’s going to take hard work on your behalf, and I’m cutting the legs out from under you if I promise you anything less. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:23-24 NRSV)
Dance Like nobody is watching.
This is the quintessential “be yourself” advice for graduates, is it not? And why not? You are your own person, God made you special; you bring something unique to the table so flaunt it. This world will try to drag you down, so don’t listen to the naysayers but follow the light within your own heart. Now let me say for the record that I believe much of that to be true, to a point. But here’s the problem. When you dance in this life (you understand “dance” is a metaphor, right?) people are watching. So to pretend that they are not is to ignore reality and ignoring reality while fun doesn’t pay the bills, doesn’t impress the boss and usually doesn’t lead to the very self-confidence that we were trying to install in the first place. Dancing is good, dancing is right, but we need to ask ourselves, what kind of a dancer am I? Should I be dancing, should I be dancing now? And am I dancing with the right people? Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. (1 Peter 4:1-5 NRSV)