My Commencement Address to 2020

When I graduated from high school it seemed like the common sentiment was, "We did it!"
The feeling behind that sentiment was that we had accomplished something difficult and that this was the greatest thing we had ever done.

Real talk now.

High school is easy. Now, before you start let me clarify: for the GENERAL PUBLIC all you have to do to graduate high school (4.0 GPA aside) is go to class and do the bare minimum of work.
That's it.
Anyone can do it.

Now, I realize that there are students with extenuating circumstances. They are the exception. They deserve the commencement speech by Oprah Winfrey or Malala Yousafzai.

But for everyone else, graduating high school has become some over celebrated and over exaggerated symbol of entrance into adulthood.

If graduating high school is the hardest and greatest thing that you have ever done than you have failed at life.
You peaked in high school.
And that's sad.
No one wants to peak in high school.

There are students who worked hard in high school. There are students who take AP classes, a 5:30am seminary class, run with the track team in the morning, practice with the swim team in the evening, work part time as a life guard, and teach piano lessons in their spare time.

What all of that does is teach you how to work hard because the hardest and greatest thing you do is what you do with your life. You could coast into college or trade jobs thinking that your life is going to get easier from now on. But it doesn't. In some ways it gets a lot harder.

And when you've finished college or training for trade jobs you can think that life is going to get easier now that you'll never have to learn again.

But you'd be wrong. Again.

Our lives are meant to be hard. We grow from challenges.

We learn from challenges. And that is what we are meant to do.

Learn.