To the Class of 2021
Dear Class of 2021:
I saw this is a yard near my house while I was walking one day last week. It is interesting as you are preparing to graduate high school that I graduated Tennyson High School a mere 34 years ago. I am a proud member of the Class of 1987.
Think about for a second, I graduated high school basically three and half decades ago or to put it in a tangible sense- seven presidents have served in the White House since I graduated high school.
That is one thing that I will become obvious, time starts to go by very fast. The Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro was playing his last year in the majors the year I graduated high school. He was 48 and I thought he was old. I couldn’t imagine being 48 at the time. My sorry ass as I write this is 52.
Remember it is a privilege to get older. Many people don’t make it as you get older. This year alone, three people that I know who I went to high school with have passed away. I feel so fortunate to have made it this far and every day I wake up I am thankful.
Be thankful for every single day. Be thankful for both the good and bad. As you get older, all of your experiences will have shaped who you are. Learn from the bad and embrace the good.
Also, remember that the world is changing at a very rapid rate. Too fast for this old man. The technology alone makes my head spin. Things change everyday. I don’t even know half the technology my students use. I might have figured out Instagram but they are doing stuff on Ticky Tocky or something like that.
That brings me to this point, there are so many jobs that exist today that didn’t exist 10, 20,30 years ago and there are so many jobs that have gone the way of the Dodo in the same timespan. Learn new skills and be adaptable.
I remember when I got to my first ship in August 1990, within a couple of weeks there was a retirement party for a Master Chief who had been in since 1959. In his little speech, he said that the Navy had given him everything and that he would always find work because he was an expert typewriter repairman. Ah, yeah. If I remember correctly, typewriters were out of fashion by about 1995 and by 2000 they were gone all together. So be flexible in your life.
Remember, here in about 20 years more than half the jobs that will be out there have not yet been created.
The one thing that will most remain the same is though is building relationships with people. Even though we have all this technology and such. Humans are social creatures and building relationships are something that we need and will never go out. As someone told me when I was getting into my field “You don’t have to be an Olympian in your knowledge but building relationships with people will be the most important thing.”
I will always believe, no matter if it is 2020, 2035, 2050 or 2100- If you surround yourself with good people, work hard, be unselfish and don’t embarrassed to say I love you and care about others it will be returned to you and the world will be a better place.