I am honored to take this opportunity to offer the greetings of the City of Middletown to Chairman Raczka and the Board of Education, to Dr. Frechette and the Administration of the Middletown School District, to Principal Fontaine and the faculty and staff of Middletown High School, to the families and friends but, mainly, to the members of the Class of 2010.
Tonight we celebrate the completion of your academic careers with Middletown schools. Some of you have been with us since kindergarten, others have come in at various points along the way but, in a few moments, Dr. Frechette will certify that all of you have successfully completed the requirements and, with those words, you will be transformed from students into graduates. You will then file across this stage, where each of you will be presented with the tangible documentary evidence of this achievement. After that, it will be over.
You might not fully appreciate that particular fact until September.
For the first time in a long time, you will be facing something entirely new. Whether you are bound for college or the workplace, your surroundings and associations will be different from those to which you have become accustomed. Also, you will be challenged in ways you have not experienced. I am sure that some of you are looking forward with great enthusiasm to what comes next; others are terrified by it. If statistics are to be believed, most of you will simply go forward in the same mindset with which you have approached challenges in the past. I urge you, however, not to become such a statistic.
It is easy to be lulled into complacency. It takes far less effort to settle for mediocrity than to pursue excellence. We all have our comfort zones. We are prone to remain in circumstances that are familiar to us, even when we find those circumstances to be less than satisfying. This is nothing new, nor is it unique to your age group. Thomas Jefferson acknowledged the same when he wrote:
. . . [A]ll experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
So, if something as monumental as the American Revolution was as much an exercise in overcoming internal resistance to change as it was an open war against external oppression, then what would be different about any significant endeavor? Your purpose, as you leave us, therefore, is to seek out challenges, face them squarely and overcome them - not avoid them.
You represent the ultimate expression of our educational system. The whole apparatus - elementary school through middle school and high school - is designed to bring you to this point. While we will no longer have the same direct influence over you in the days and years to come, you will take with you not only the technical skills, but the virtues we have imparted to you. It is our hope that you will take everything we have offered you over the years and make the most and best possible use of it. This you should to in spite of whatever fear you may have, as courage is undoubtedly one of those virtues.
“Regret” must be the saddest word in the English language. Mark Twain said that “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.” You don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to be approaching your 20th reunion thinking about missed opportunities and what might have been – regretting every occasion when you could have stepped out in faith but instead chose to retreat in fear, opting for the comfort of the status quo.
All of you have the potential for greatness. What then, can hold you back from achieving it? Only you yourself can. Nelson Mandela, in his 1994 inauguration, quoted the essayist Marianne Williamson, from her 1992 work A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles”, as follows:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
So congratulations from the City of Middletown to the Blue Dragon Class of 2010. Now, go forth from this time and place. Invent, explore, learn, design, guide, cure, write, paint, sing, dance, fly, sail, build and create. And don’t be afraid to tilt at a windmill or two.
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