The speech I gave as the surprise alumni keynote speaker @ my sister's baccalaureate ceremony:
I feel truly honored to return to El Toro, five years after I graduated, to speak to the class of 2010 on this special day!
When I started thinking about a speech topic, I found myself googling graduation speech guidelines – I wanted to dazzle you all with my intelligence, wit, eloquence, and maybe a few jokes, and all in the hopes that you would think I brilliantly came up with everything on my own. What I found was an overwhelming number of commencement clichés – sayings we hear over and over in graduation speeches. So I made it my goal to avoid these at all costs.
This is the week you’ve been looking forward to for years – your high school graduation week. You’ve picked up your cap and gown, took your senior finals, and sent out your graduation announcements. Maybe you’ve even received some responses to those announcements: a nice, Hallmark graduation card from Aunt Gertie (a bird soaring into a bright, sunny sky – “spread your wings, class of 2010!”) or one from Cousin Al (a path forging up a tree-lined mountain – with the caption, “take the road less traveled, congratulations on your graduation!”). Don’t these cards and clichés all start to look and sound the same?
Here’s an idea – what if these tried and true statements, these clichés, could still inspire us? I decided to change the approach to my speech - what if instead of avoiding commencement clichés, I constructed my speech today entirely out of them?
Ironically, if you were to follow the advice of all these graduation clichés, you would completely be yourself, have the entire world at your fingertips, and be the change you want to see. And really, you would be a unique voice, seeking a better world. Since we hear these clichés so often, most people don’t take the advice of these well-worn sayings to heart.
At one time, the very first instance someone uttered those words, they were well-meaning, not well-used. And while your English teachers may cringe if they see them in your essays, you have to give clichés some credit – they are founded in truth. They’ve just become so common that they’ve lost their punch.
I’m warning you now – you’re going to hear more of these graduation “clichés” over the next week or so. So when you hear them, really take time to consider how they can speak to you. “Spread your wings.” “Take the road less traveled.” “This is the beginning of a new chapter.” I mean, is this the most novel, most personal advice someone can give you, to encourage you to “shoot for the stars?”
Well, I think it is.
Stay with me here – I’m about to get real inspirational.
If you really, truly strive to find the things in life you are passionate about, that are uniquely you, oh, the places you’ll go! Why settle for a run-of-the-mill life when the world is your oyster? Don’t settle for just being average – this is your time to shine, so go find that spotlight. Be extraordinary. Don’t conform, but dare to be different. Seek things that bring you joy. Reach for the stars, make a few mistakes, and live life to its fullest.
You see, my speech was doomed to be a giant cliché, but your life doesn’t have the same fate. Don’t let your life be a cliché.
Be yourself. Pursue your dreams. Follow your heart. And if you do all these things, El Toro High School Class of 2010, you’ll truly have the time of your life.
