Graduation Speech: Always Look On The Bright Side of Life :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

I have been chosen today to come before you and give some language of encouragement to the graduating class because I am seen as an example of one who has succeeded in school. And yet, I am by no means the only soul in our class who has succeeded. Woody Allen once said, Success is 80 percent showing up and since either of you have shown up here today and at school for the last 12 years, you all are most of the way there. So what makes up the remaining 20 percent? Not getting all As on your tests, or going to state or winning first prize in a contest. It is merely trying. If you try your best, you have already succeeded, regardless of where you end up. The world is a fickle place and too often the most deserving, hardest-working people are passed over in favor of the ones who adjudge the best-looking accomplishments. Thus, ones measure of success should be based not on how well you do by societys standards, but on how hard you worked and how much you got out of it. As Tennyson onc e said, How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnishd, not to shine in use But rather, we should be, as he said, like the spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human conception ... To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Just because we are graduating today does not mean we now know everything rather, it is just the opposite. As we go out into the world we will gallop to grow, to learn, to mature. Indeed, this is perhaps one of the greatest qualities of mankind, that we can develop our minds to better understand. It is a rare and important gift that should not be abused through heedlessness or halfhearted attention. Never stop trying and never stop learning because the moment you do, you begin to die. Once you leave here tonight, you will no longer be seniors. You will be adults, set adrift with the entire world at your disposal. It will be up to you, and you alone, to decide your futures. Today to a gre ater extent than ever, as we stand at the dawn of the new millennium, you have the opportunity to become something great, to achieve wondrous deeds.