Hi Friend
Two graduations in a week! My son graduated college last Saturday night and my daughter graduated high school last night. They were both amazing and long. My son is in an accelerated program where he finished his undergrad in three years 😳 and will take another 1.5 years to get his masters. My daughter took the normal amount of time to graduate high school where she was valedictorian with distinction.
It was sort of surreal to hear some of my daughters classmates names being called. A few of them were in our carpool who I would take to or pick up from elementary school every day. Haven’t seen or thought about them in years but an immediate flood of memories smashed through my brain upon hearing their names.
My son landed a killer internship with FCB in Chicago. He’s an aspiring marketing strategist and gets to do that at a global company. He’s moving there next week. My daughter is taking a gap year. She’s headed to Los Angeles in August to serve at the LA Dream Centerfor an entire year. Their mission is to connect broken people to a community of support by providing free resources and services that address immediate and long-term needs in the areas of homelessness, hunger, poverty, addiction, abuse, education and human trafficking.
I’m super proud of both of them, as you might expect. The process of taking next steps towards their future is thrilling and exhausting. They each approach it entirely different.
I love the idea of graduation. It gives a firm assurance that this part of the journey has concluded. It also inherently infers that you are prepared for the next phase of life, whether you feel like it or not. There is no going back!
Absolutes establish new beginnings
I wonder why we don’t have more graduations in life? Granted we have birthdays recognizing our aging. We get promotions recognizing our increased responsibility and capacity. After college, if we take that route, there is no mechanism to acknowledge we’ve completed a level in life and are now entering into a new phase.
Graduating combines the elements of progressive learning, attendance, passing tests and some level of participation. Do you think it’s because we eliminate structured learning from our lives that we no longer aspire to graduate? Can you imagine if high school didn’t have a finishing date?
Is that our life now? One long ongoing social structure with no sense of completion? Or worse, what if we graduate and have no acknowledgment of it? Can you imagine concluding high school and just leaving on the last day with no ceremony or pomp? How disheartening.
As a parent, I’ve actively learned, attended a bunch of stuff, passed and failed tests and certainly participated. We don’t have language to support the idea that at some point I became Dad 2.0 or Dad 5.6 or completed a phase of parenting that will never return. We certainly have no fanfare for it.
I want to move my tassel to the other side!
Instigating Ideas
1. Where in your life have you fully completed something, never to return, but made no acknowledgement?
2. Who could you celebrate for completing a season in their life? Do it.
3. We are always learning. Capture a new layer of knowledge this week by writing it down or telling someone.
Graduation creates obligation
Decisions need to be made
Directions need to established
Duties need to be completed
I tend to shy away from absolutes. However, there is something significant about defined endings that enable healthy beginnings. Friend is something lingering in your life that you need to conclude?Â