Dear graduates: seven things you should know

Thank you, Superintendent Jones, for that wonderful introduction. I did not realize I was so awesome until hearing about all of my achievements and accomplishments . You're lucky to have me, and I'm not just saying that. And welcome to parents, family, and friends, and especially to you - the graduates - the reason we are gathered here today.


Thirty years ago, I was one of you. Sitting on a cheap metal folding chair in a hot, sweaty gymnasium, not a whiff of a breeze to chase off the pungent aroma of teen spirit competing with smells of cheap cologne and stale remnants of the night before's Coors binge. Listening to some fat-ass state senator with a comb-over and cheap suit tell us how to achieve his version of what our dreams should be. And he used a clunky metaphor about how we were like a crop of spring wheat, newly planted and sprouting through the soil, soon to form kernels that would be harvested. And then presumably milled and baked into a nice loaf of bread or something. Not sure because I didn't listen that closely.

Whatever. I'm not that guy. Screw the platitudes. I am here to dispense cold hard truth. You may not like all of it, but you deserve to know how it is out there. So here are my seven things you should know as you begin the next phase of your life.

          1.     You suck but not as much as we would have you believe

I’ll start with good news. You “millennials,” or whatever it is you call yourselves, are not the underachieving whiney little lumps that my generation likes to believe. Sure, many of you are fat, stupid, and lazy. But that’s not a new thing. We had fat, stupid, and lazy back in my day too. You need to know that every generation likes to feel better about itself by bashing the generations that follow. Yes, your baggy pants look ridiculous and your music lacks substance. When I was your age I grew a mullet and listened to a lot of Hank Williams Jr. I matured and so will most of you.

A case can be made for my generation. We didn't have peanut allergies or gluten intolerance. We didn't have helicopter parents or soccer moms. Hell, we didn't even have soccer. We played high school football, guzzled from beer bongs, picked on the weird kids, and went to church every Sunday. And when we came home from football practice after school we sat on our asses watching classic cartoons, like “Scooby Doo” and “He-Man, Master of the Universe.” 

On second thought, maybe a case can't be made for my generation.

But for all of you, there's a chance. It's not that you all are so much better than those who came before you, it's just that we need you to help figure out our remote controls and various computing devices. And that gives you the advantage in a world world ruled by technology.

          2.     College is expensive, but so is the alternative

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are college dropouts. Here’s some bad news. You are not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg. You're not even your Uncle Roger who dropped out of high school and built a successful plumbing business from scratch. Uncle Roger is smart and a workaholic. He's a bit of an asshole, too, so he is able to collect when customers try stiffing him on his invoices. Uncle Roger is an outlier. You, on the other hand, wouldn't know a plunger from a pipe wrench. What you need to know is this:

Median Annual Earnings of Adults Age 25 and Over (Full-Time Workers), 2011

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Last Modified Date: March 23, 2012

This is simple math. Of course, maybe you will be the exception who does well without college. Just be smart enough to understand that the odds are not in your favor. 

          3.     Follow your dream but don't be stupid about it

Yes, you should definitely follow your dream. Unless your dream causes you and/or your parents to go into significant debt to finance your art history degree. That's not a dream, that's a nightmare. Be aware that if you choose this path, ten years from now you are not allowed  to bitch about how your barista job doesn't pay enough to cover your students loans and your rent.  

          4.      Half of college is showing up

College, in part, is about socializing and coming of age.  Even if your college roommates must regularly roll you onto your side because they fear that you will drown in your own vomit while passed out on the bathroom floor on a school night, the next morning you still need to get up, brush your teeth, and show up for your organic chemistry class.  Half of college is showing up. The other half is not drowning in your own - or someone else's - vomit. 

          5.    Social media is forever

You will be looking for jobs some day. Consider yourself on notice. 

          6.   Your classmates will lie about their income potential

 Whenever any of your future college classmates start telling you about how much money they will be making after graduation, a good rule of thumb is to discount whatever they tell you by about forty percent. The reality is that just a tiny little fraction of your classmates will be raking in serious money straight out of college. Further, that tiny fraction will not be telling you about how much money they will be making because they will be spending their time in the library or lab or hunched over a laptop acquiring knowledge that will be valuable to prospective employers. 

          7.     Ignore everything I just told you (almost)

This is the secret that nobody ever tells you: Do whatever you want and don't let me or anyone else tell you otherwise. Seriously. Everything laid out above is predicated on the notion that money and career define success and that is what you should strive for. The reality is that the more "success" you achieve, the greater the expectations, the greater the consequences of failure, the greater the stress, the less time to play video games and watch sports. 

I have a decent job. I sit in a comfortable chair in an office with big windows. But there are days when I want to check out and pursue my dream job of living in a shack raising organic vegetables that I sell at the farmers' market while I spend my spare time reading great books and working in the shed where I perfect my homemade whiskey recipe. 

The point is, there are many paths to success, however you define it. So go ahead and move to Austin and start a band, Steamboat Springs to be a ski bum, Amsterdam to work in a coffee shop. Or join the Navy and explore the world or go to work for your Uncle Roger and learn a trade. Unless you're one of my daughters. Because my girls will go to good colleges and not date until after graduate school. And at least one of them will go to medical school to care for me when I am old. 

So there you go. Follow these steps and you will succeed. If you don't, blame your parents and teachers. 

Peace.