Another Graduation, You Know What that Means?

By Dave Barry
MASSP President

It is June and you probably just finished another commencement to honor the recent graduating class of 2009. Thousands of students in Michigan have walked across the stage over the last few weeks to receive their diplomas and hear countless graduation speeches with words of wisdom.  Which means one thing, you are getting another year older.

By the time you're as old as I am (44) you've surely happened upon the outer limits of cool. Unless you have your own teenagers in your house and then the cut-off for cool is about 30. Maybe I'm speaking for myself, but even as I've experienced more of life than today's teens, even as I've gained the inner depth and substance to back the outer appearance, whatever cool I had has disappeared like the hair on my head.

Not that I ever had much to start with (hair or cool). Being cool is too much work. I once walked into a pole in high school while trying to impress a girl. Not only did my head hurt but my ego was bruised as well.

But here's a secret I've discovered: life is bigger and sweeter than whatever cool has to offer. I once thought being cool was the ultimate pursuit; now I know it's just an empty promise. I once thought being cool meant being relevant; now I know that relevance touches people in their soul where joy, and sorrow is found. Cool lives only for the moment  and thus cannot possibly be relevant when it really counts.

Cool contains enough contradictions and illusions to make one's head spin. But those after-party moments of honesty, when we know -- really know -- that we're lost and going nowhere, are the moments of opportunity for true meaningful soul searching beyond the external pursuits of cool.

I believe pursuing significance, not success, is the next level of cool. When we feel lonely and vulnerable-- when we feel like the world must have more to offer then it is those moments when we can abandon cool and go for significance. When we look around and ask ourselves, "What am I doing with my life that will make a difference in someone's life?" then and only then can we begin to live significant lives. Cool focuses on our selves, significance focuses on others.

With all of these graduates, it is my hope and dream that they will recognize cool as fleeting while significance endures.

Reflectively,

Dave

Dave Barry
Out-Going MASSP President
davebarry@wlcsd.org