High School Seniors, Live Deliberately

As one of my responsibilities at work, I help with our graduation performances which includes four speeches and four musical acts. My school does not have a valedictorian, nor do we  bring in an outside commencement speaker. Everything is kid focused, with the exception of a speech by our principal. It's a truly wonderful ceremony.

Of course, I do have some thoughts for the graduating seniors each year, and this year the Denver Post was kind enough to give me a forum for my commencement speech. The primary focus is on an idea from early American writing - specifically, to "live deliberately." Here is a link to my piece which was featured as A Message for Today's Graduates from Henry David Thoreau (and Punk Rock).

The world is becoming increasingly standardized, but the American ethos of a “rugged individuality” and a pioneering spirit was not about sameness. It was, however, about choice. And there may be nothing wrong with consistency and similarity as long as it is conscious and deliberate.

Henry David Thoreau was an original. In fact, he was the original original. And that originality has run throughout American history, from the American Revolution to the culture of punk rock, an ethos nowhere better defined than in the “Punk Rock Manifesto” from Bad Religion front man Greg Graffin, who asserted, “Punk is: a belief that this world is what we make of it, and truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be.”

If we approach our lives with that sort of deliberateness and honesty, we will all be in much better shape.