What a wonderful time of year.

The grass is green, the sun is shining and the days are getting longer! And, oh yeah, how could I forget graduations are in full swing. Good ole graduation, the ceremony of two tales:

● The Graduate – Give me my diploma and let me get out of this place.

● The Parent – The memories, the future, so much of life left to taste.

Unfortunately, it seems that most commencement speeches are geared more to the parent than the graduate. Long speeches about what the future holds in store. Praise given to the parent, family members, teachers and friends. All the while, the graduate may briefly reminisce about the long nights, the awful tests, but mostly thinks, when will the ceremony end so I can get out of this place.

Well this commencement is for the graduate. For it is my belief, you are the ones that deserves it. You are the ones who persevered, you are the ones who stuck with it, you are the ones who put in those long nights. Everyone else was simply doing their jobs. And, actually by you persevering and graduating, you made their jobs easier. So here is to you Graduate, short and sweet! Three simple things:

#1 ATTITUDE

This is yours. It is the one thing you have that you have total control over. That is, unless you hand control over to someone else. I implore you to never allow your attitude to be controlled by others. You have heard that Perception is Reality. Your perception stems from your attitude; therefore, if your attitude is good your perception will be good and your reality will be great! For, you see, Good + Good = Great!

Attitude. Never ever forget that yours is yours and yours alone!

#2 THE BIG PICTURE

Picture yourself as the only human being left on earth. Even for an introvert such as myself, being totally alone forever is a depressing thought. My point is that people are necessary, and yes, all people. They may not all agree with you, or like doing the things you like to do, but believe it or not they are all necessary. In the Big Picture of everybody in the world, where do you fit in? What can you contribute to the greater good of everybody? You have a talent that is unique to only you. Discovering that talent and putting it to use for the greater good will far outpace putting your talents to use for selfish pursuits over the long run.

The Big Picture. You are not the sole person in this world, nor want to be, remember that!

#3 HOUSING

You all, I’m sure, have heard of the following two phrases:

● You are what you eat

● No pain, no gain

Food fuels our bodies, and we all have different fuel requirements. Jets use one type of fuel, tractors another type and cars one type and race cars even another type. There is no one set of fuel for all.

Exercise compensates our bodies for the mostly sedentary lifestyles we live today. But like different fuel requirements, we all have different exercise requirements. Some need to put themselves through excruciating pain to feel as if they have accomplished something whereas others can simply go for a nice stroll through the park.

HOUSING. Our bodies are where we house Attitudes, and our Big Picture, so as long as our housing unit does not take away from those two things all is good. We were not all meant to be Barbie and Ken.

I congratulate you and you alone for this is your accomplishment. You, too, should congratulate yourself on a job well done, It’s Over!

I hope you will always remember:

● the mind – attitude – is yours to control

● the soul – the big picture – your heart

● the body – housing – simply holds the other two while you are on earth

Keep all three in proportion, for these are you and you alone!