Friday night was the start of high school graduation season in these parts. I attended the first of four commencement exercises that I expect to cover in the next nine days for our stalwart community newspapers.
I might add that today is the 49th anniversary of my crossing the stage to accept a college diploma, and Sunday is the beginning of my 50th year as a guy paid to watch other people have a life and report what I see.
So it’s the time of year to see young people relieved at being free to be responsible for their own lives and scared to death because now they’re responsible for their own lives.
This first graduation ceremony of the season was at a Lutheran high school, so it started with a prayer from a pastor who, coincidentally enough, said that he graduated from high school 49 years ago. He told the grads you never know exactly what God has in store for you and admitted when he crossed that high school stage he did not suspect that his career would be as a pastor.
The main speaker quoted from Emerson words that may have seemed odd to those young people who were poised to launch full tilt into their pursuit of happiness: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
The interesting thing is that if you live well, if you are useful, honorable, compassionate and make a difference, you’ll find yourself feeling something like happiness. And the darker times will be when you’re feeling useless or realize you could have handled something with a little more honor or compassion.
Those ancient poets knew a few things about life.
