My twins had their high school graduation ceremony last week. I tell you this not because I believe it is of any real importance to you, but because the event has caused me to reflect on some things that you may find some value in.
First; I have often said – and some of you are witness to this – that I believe it is a great thing to love what you do for a living and that to work at something for 20, 30 or 40 years that you do not like does not make any sense to me. I have tried to instil this value in my kids. As they ponder their next steps I have encouraged them to pursue things that they enjoy at this point in their lives and not worry about what job they might get at the end of it all. Now having said this, I must confess, there is a small part of me that says, “that’s all well and good, but try to find something that at least pays the bills”. Sometimes core values are hard to live by.
Second; connected to this, is a comment I have heard a number of times recently. The jobs my kids will probably end up doing most likely do not even exist yet. Apparently, things in our world are changing so quickly that it is hard to know what roles, tasks, or skills will be required down the road. This raises all kinds of questions for me. What kind of education do our kids pursue? How do you train people if this is the case? At the end of the day I think, for me anyways, it re-enforces the point I just made; pursue things you love to do and look for opportunities to create a career out of those passions.
And third; Judith Umbach was the guest speaker at the ceremony. If her name is familiar to you it may be because the old Thorncliff library was re-named in her honour. I enjoyed her speech – it was genuine and engaging. The main point I took home from it is that life has its surprise moments – both good and bad – for all of us. And the reality is we cannot do much about those moments other than choose how we are going to respond to them.
This is not necessarily a new thought for me – I have heard it before. But she articulated it in a way that made me pause and consider it again. We all like the good surprises, they are much easier to handle. The not so good surprises are obviously much harder. In those moments it is so much easier to focus on all the details that we have no control over whatsoever; but if we could just find a way to focus on the details we can control, perhaps then we would have a better chance of coming out the other side as stronger, better, happier people.
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Graduation Day!
First; I have often said – and some of you are witness to this – that I believe it is a great thing to love what you do for a living and that to work at something for 20, 30 or 40 years that you do not like does not make any sense to me. I have tried to instil this value in my kids. As they ponder their next steps I have encouraged them to pursue things that they enjoy at this point in their lives and not worry about what job they might get at the end of it all. Now having said this, I must confess, there is a small part of me that says, “that’s all well and good, but try to find something that at least pays the bills”. Sometimes core values are hard to live by.
Second; connected to this, is a comment I have heard a number of times recently. The jobs my kids will probably end up doing most likely do not even exist yet. Apparently, things in our world are changing so quickly that it is hard to know what roles, tasks, or skills will be required down the road. This raises all kinds of questions for me. What kind of education do our kids pursue? How do you train people if this is the case? At the end of the day I think, for me anyways, it re-enforces the point I just made; pursue things you love to do and look for opportunities to create a career out of those passions.
And third; Judith Umbach was the guest speaker at the ceremony. If her name is familiar to you it may be because the old Thorncliff library was re-named in her honour. I enjoyed her speech – it was genuine and engaging. The main point I took home from it is that life has its surprise moments – both good and bad – for all of us. And the reality is we cannot do much about those moments other than choose how we are going to respond to them.
This is not necessarily a new thought for me – I have heard it before. But she articulated it in a way that made me pause and consider it again. We all like the good surprises, they are much easier to handle. The not so good surprises are obviously much harder. In those moments it is so much easier to focus on all the details that we have no control over whatsoever; but if we could just find a way to focus on the details we can control, perhaps then we would have a better chance of coming out the other side as stronger, better, happier people.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2018 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.