5/21/15
It is the season of school graduations as I write this. I am moved each year at this time. What does it for me is watching tender but titanic shifts in millions of lives. Some step from high school into jobs or college. Others launch from college into professional life. All face fears, grope for wisdom, long for the meaning beneath the memories.
I’ve done my share of graduation speeches. Often, school leaders ask me to talk about the principles that guide my life. I’ve identified ten of them – though there are probably more – and I’d like to list them here in brief. Ponder them. Live by them if you find them meaningful. I have known them as wise friends in this uncertain life.
1. Take God very seriously and little else.
2. Live everyday as though it were your last, for one day you are sure to be right.
3. Fortune favors the bold.
4. You have a destiny and your destiny is fulfilled by investing in the destiny of others.
5. We make a living by what we earn and we make a life by what we give.
6. The best things in life are seasonal.
7. Thoreau said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. Don’t be one of them.
8. Life is too short for bitterness, anger, and self-pity. See them as the enemies of your
happiness.
9. A change is as good as a rest.
10. Do something every day that scares you.
That’s it. Have a great weekend. And remember me in a busy month of global travel.
Stephen