The Graduation Present

I read this somewhere once…

 

 

“I won’t condescend to you and ask you to listen.  What I know that you don’t know is that try (and/or lie) as you might, you won’t actually listen right now—you’re probably a few years and a couple of good, hard failures away from truly listening.  That’s not a value judgment against you, that’s simply a stating of the facts like ‘the sky is blue’.  The fact is, simply, that you’re not ready to listen.  You may think you are.  You might even say you are.  But you’re not.  And that’s ok, because you will be.  Hopefully it’ll be a soft landing when you are.  But if it’s not, remember that we’re here for you.

 

So all I’m going to ask is that you hear this.  That’s all, nothing more.  Simply hear it.  Then, when you’re really, truly ready to listen, you’ll remember it and really, truly listen to not just what the words are saying, but what they’re meaning as well.

 

So here it is. 

 

You’re not ready.  You’re not even close to ready.  The world you’re about to step in to is bigger even than you think it is.  You don’t have all the tools, yet.  Those will be found along the way.  You don’t have all the answers, yet.  Some of those will be found along the way, too.  All will be revealed in time.  By and by, all will be clear.

 

Also, it’s almost never what you think it is.  There’s almost always something more to the story.

 

Again, this isn’t a value judgment against you.  Simply because you’re not ready does not mean you’re not good enough to become ready.  In fact, you’re prepared (or as prepared as you’re going to get) to become ready, but the only way you’re can be ready is by stepping across the stage. 

 

A good image for where you are right now is a guy standing in front of a closed door.  On the other side is a lion.  You’ve seen the lion.  You’ve had it described to you.  You have the gun to shoot it with.  You’ve practiced with the gun.  You’ve seen others go through the door and shoot the lion.  You’ve studied what they did right.  You’ve seen others get eaten.  You know what they did wrong.  You’re prepared. 

 

Now you have to open the door and face the lion and everything that’s been described and everything that you’ve seen and everything that you’ve practiced will take on a whole new dimension.  It’ll be everything they said it would be—and more.  It’ll be just like you saw before, but different.

That’s where you are.  You’re standing in front of that door.

 

You’ve been taught both in the classroom and outside of the classroom with some of the best resources the schools and world can throw at you.  But they’re not enough.  It’s all going to be different when it’s your apartment, your car, your insurance, your bills, your responsibility.  They are enough to prepare you, but they won’t open the door for you.  Hard decisions and hard days will come (and right now you’re thinking ‘no they won’t’; but you’re wrong and now you’re not simply hearing because you’re talking back and you can’t do both at the same time). 

 

Yes, they will come.

 

But just think about it.  You certainly have an idea of what the real world is like.  You certainly have an idea of what it means to sacrifice family time for work.  You certainly have an idea of what it means to have to make a decision based on limited resources.  You’ve had to do all of those things.  But you just have to trust me that it’s totally different after you cross that stage.  That’s not to say that it’s harder, or easier, or that you can’t do it.  It’s just different.  Just like you can read all about what it’s like for someone to see their sister in a coma, but it’s totally and completely different when it’s you doing the seeing and your sister doing the lying there.  So I’m not going to tell you what it’s like.  Besides, even if it’s the same for you as it is for everyone else, you’ll experience it differently than me, so I’m only going to tell you that it’s different.  And you’re just going to have to trust me—and everyone else who has said it—that we’re not lying to you because like it or not, we love you and we’re not going to deceive you or tell you that you’re not good enough.

 

We might say “I told you so”, though.

 

The tools you’ve been given will get you close to “there”.  But that’s all the tools will do for you.  The tools and experience you’ve earned and learned will only get you close.  The “something else” that’s inside of you is what will actually be the platform for you to stand on to get you over the top.  Everything you do and every role you play will help you to grow and get “bigger” as you get closer and closer to reaching the top.  Chances are pretty good that you’ll never get to the top—few people ever do.  Chances are also pretty good that you don’t really want to be there—few people ever really do.

 

You’re good, but you’re not the best.  You know a lot, but you don’t know enough.  You’ve got some of the skills and the tools, but they won’t get you over the top.  You think you know what it’ll be like, but you don’t.  You have an idea, but there is so, so, so much more than you can even imagine after you cross that stage.  You can do it.  You really can.  But the most important thing that you can possibly know right now at this crucial time in your life is that you don’t know the most important thing—that’ll be found somewhere along the way.

 

The greatest knowledge you can posses is the knowledge—the absolute unwavering knowledge—that there is so much more you don’t know about what you think you know than you can possibly imagine. 

 

The world has a way of making you feel small sometimes.  Don’t let that get you down.  After all, if the world wasn’t such a big place there wouldn’t be any room to grow, and as long as we’re growing there’s no risk of simply fading away.

 

But the best way to grow is to be small to begin with, and not hesitate to get big when the opportunity presents itself.

 

Consider this your graduation present.”

 

 

It’s probably not a verbatim recreation, but it’s pretty damn close.