Grad Speech #1

Dearly Beloved,

Think about this… which is easier – doing, or not doing? Oddly, both of them are difficult. If we try and sit still and do nothing for two minutes, I think we’ll find that almost as difficult as being active for two minutes. However, in life – big picture, doing nothing is much easier than doing something. In doing – having dreams, ideas, aspirations, etc. we open ourselves up for criticism. There will be people waiting to tell you of how foolish our ambitions are and how we shouldn’t concern ourselves with them – because that’s easy. It’s easy to criticize, condemn, and admonish. Any fool can do that, and most fools do. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is. And, the opposite of doing, of course, is not doing – being insipid creatures that take up space. We could clam up, have no dreams, goals, or desire and nobody will bother us – except debt collectors. This is the truth.

It’s difficult to have a positive attitude. It’s ridiculously, almost impossibly, tough to keep a positive disposition in a world that loves to see us fail. We will undoubtedly get (metaphorically or literally) knocked down a time or 10,000 in the next 50 years. And such is life. You might lose your job, or get demoted. You might have troubles in child birth, or not be able to have children at all. Maybe your kid won’t like you? If you’re like me, you may doubt the possibility of ever finding anyone who will marry you. Ultimately, your parents will die… you will die. These are the facts of life. The question we will have to ask is what will we do with the time we have before it’s over? You will have choices to make every day. I’m not talking, Armani, or Versace or Coach vs. Prada. I’m talking about your approach towards the rest of the world and that’s completely up to you – at work, at home, at the gym, at school, with friends, family, the guy you see everyday walking to the subway station. And then there will be those who we will run into who are simply impossible to love let alone like. It’s true; we aren’t going to make friends with everyone. And, they might not like us either. Oh well. We can’t control that.

I moved to Minneapolis for three months in 2006. For reasons unknown, I accepted the worst job of all time – but I didn’t know it at that time. I could talk entirely about the pitfalls of walking around a large city’s suburbs while trying to peddle some stupid promotions for a go kart track. But, that would be counterproductive to my intended point. Anyway, there was a guy who I worked with and his name was Adam. Adam and I were out “pounding the pavement” one day when I probably told him something about how I would rather be in solitary confinement for the next 2 years than work another day on this job. He looked at me, exhaled some smoke from his cigarette, and told me that there are only two things in this world that I could control: #1 was my attitude. And 2 was my work ethic. At the time, I wanted to hit him right in his stupid smoker’s mouth and tell him to go wrestle a cougar. But, I didn’t. I just kept about my business and thought about what Adam told me. And, it made sense. I hated him for that. My attitude was subpar and my work ethic was probably worse. I was the problem.

In most instances in life as we look back and as we move forward, we’ll remember scenarios and encounter new ones where we don’t want to think so, but if there is a problem – we’re having a brutal time at work, at home, with friends, etc – if we think about it, we are probably the problem. But, we can also be the solution.

I am convinced that, with the proper mind set, there isn’t a single problem we can’t solve with a little help and encouragement from one another. Not just from the people sitting in this room, but with all the human resources you will have at your disposal really soon. The hard part is figuring out how to lead them and inspire the seemingly lifeless and unlovable among us. The answers are varied, and none of them are easy. But if it was easy to be a great leader, everyone would be.

I think that the answer, in my experience, comes down to love, compassion, empathy, and respect. If we are able to move forward from Viterbo with the notion that we all have an unending amount of each of these items, we will be the change that the world needs to see. Even if we make an impact in a small circle, it’s still going to be a positive one. Think about it, we have a limited amount of physical resources in which we can distribute; we live in a finite world. I learned that in an earth science class. But we, each one of us, can make the often times difficult choice to be kind to one another, be loving, compassionate, and respectful. We can arise each day with a determination to positively impact those whom we come into contact by simply not gossiping, slandering, and belittling others – we can choose to do that which is not easy and in doing that, we can inspire.

We’re all in this together – life that is. And we are each other’s finest resource; I would encourage all of us to embrace that fact as quickly and as fervently as possible. Two people sit in a room. One says, “I can” while the other says, “I can’t.” Both of them are right – whose attitude will we embody?

Fare Thee Well and God Bless.