AS YOU GRADUATE from high school and seek to shrug the trappings of childhood, it is natural and proper for you to look forward. Just as naturally, parents look back to assess the job they did in guiding their child to adulthood. It is a time for parents to cast about for any lesson we may have neglected in the hope that we may impart that last bit of wisdom before you are off on your own. We parents indulge in the amiable fiction that anything we say at this time could possibly make a difference. Surely, if we have done our work well, nothing more needs to be said. Nonetheless, permit me to remind you of certain themes at this milestone in your life.
Duty. Robert E. Lee wrote to his son, "Do your duty in all things like the old Puritan. You cannot do more, you should never seek to do less. Never let me or your mother wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part."
Jeremy, I know you have made a habit of exceeding the expectations of your family and school. Do not neglect duty to self. You are a person of copious capabilities, capabilities you have yet to completely appreciate. These abundant talents open for you a wide scope of action. You are thus encumbered with the burden of choice and the obligations imposed on those to whom much has been given.
You may find it tempting to follow the easy path of focusing on conventional measures of success, while ignoring the full development and application of your talents. Economic success has its place. Any parent wishes for his child a comfortable life. But possessions are hollow outside the context of service and duty.
Knowledge. Do not sacrifice personal enrichment, development, and introspection at the altar of entertaining but empty diversions. Be zealous and steadfast in your pursuit of knowledge and truth. Do not seek the mediocre or undistinguished. Aspire to more than the ordinary and the average. Avoid settling for "good enough" because "good enough" is not good enough for you.
College will allow you to accumulate the intellectual capital necessary for a lifetime. Maximize this investment. Such capital is difficult to renew.
Family. As the winds of opportunity blow and lift you, the constraints of family, community, and spirituality may appear to burden you. Be comforted in the knowledge that these ties provide the tension that keeps aloft the kite of life. Allow these ties to slacken or break and the same buoyant winds that can support you, may dash you to the ground. Therefore, seek to continually nurture and renew the connections to your family. These provide continuity from generation to generation and remind you of your place in time.
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