Perspective: Message for graduates

Tonight at 5 p.m. the Jefferson City High School Class of 2015 will have its graduation ceremony at Adkins Stadium.

If there is inclement weather the ceremony will be in the Fleming Field House on the JCHS campus but the seating there is extremely limited. As a result, each member of the graduating class has been given four tickets to admit family members. But those tickets will only be needed if we end up indoors this evening.

If that is the case, announcements will be made today through local media outlets and through social media.

It is indeed the time of year for graduations and graduation speeches. Not everyone listens closely to such speeches, but we should.

In fact, if we could consolidate the greatest thoughts in all the graduation speeches of the day, we could have quite a collection of solid guidance.

Just recently one of my children was feeling the stress of academics and life, and my advice was simply, "Work hard and don't worry."

Those words alone could form the basis of a good graduation speech but I would probably expand the outline to read, "Pray, plan, work hard, and don't worry."

Such a message would speak to your spiritual life (pray), the management of your life (plan), sustaining your life (work hard), and the alleviation of stress from your life (don't worry).

In any graduation speech we could also talk about being unselfish, loving others, serving one's community, and being thankful to parents and teachers, but it isn't possible to cover everything in just a few minutes.

If a person kept the message within the scope of pray, plan, work hard, and don't worry, it would - in a broad and general sense - help meet needs in the lives of young people everywhere.

Do you know anyone who is a teenager or in his or her early 20s who doesn't need to think about matters of faith, organizing life, developing a good work ethic, or clearing the mind of stress?

I don't.

But it's up to us to guide them.

Every student joining the adult world of the future needs to hear from individuals who have already learned from the adult world of today.

They need to hear from people who have worked and struggled and cooperated and loved and lost and celebrated and suffered and failed and cried and laughed and paid taxes and raised children and built homes and built businesses and succeeded and grew and prayed and worshipped and - well, from people who have lived.

If we could poll adults with that kind of experience about all that is really important, there would be much agreement on what really matters, what it takes to be happy, and what it takes to attain success.

And that brings us back to praying, planning, working hard, and leaving the worries behind. I would contend that if a young person gets those first three items right then the fourth item (not worrying) would probably take care of itself.

Those are good things for young people to be thinking about and it's up to all of us to tell them.

I hope they listen.

David Wilson, EdD, is the associate principal at Jefferson City High School. You may e-mail him at [email protected].