Graduation

Graduation is not the final chapter of education and learning, rather the first chapter of the rest of one's life. It salutes graduates into the world around them as people who have fought and striven to become great enough to be allowed a passage directly into life and reality.

Not to say that reality was with held from them during their years of schooling. It fact, it was even more enforced in academic buildings than it will be in the real world. Reality has success and failed attempts; reality has friends and outcasts; reality has tests and experience; reality has pros and cons. And so does school. If one is not 'fashionable', 'popular', or 'just right' in school, they are shunned or looked down upon for being different. Being unique. Being themselves. They are laughed at for being different, when reality laughs at those who are all the same.

But reality does not have grades based on test scores or quizzes or papers. It does not grade on a curve: either one is good enough or one is not. There are no 'baby steps' in reality, for if one does not submerge themselves within the crashing waves of reality and allow life to keep them chained to the 'real life' situations, one will not be able to be good enough for anyone.

However, if one only clings to reality they will also never achieve greatness. Creativity, nonconformity, independence, imagination are all the stepping stones of greatness. Those who can twist reality and fantasy and make all their dreams come true will go far and live happily. To cast away the norm is to be frowned upon in situations involving shallow individuals, but it is also to be praised in life, in 'reality', in truth.

But, as in petty school dramas, there is always some force working against everyone. Time does not slow, does not falter, does not alter its tightly coiled hold on anyone for any reason. One must beat time to the finish, instead of watching it go by out the window. Make something of your life. Be better than anyone around you.

So, congratulations, graduates. Your time starts now.