Can you believe it? Within only three weeks, the days will begin to get shorter again, heralding, at a time we have yet to feel even the slightest hint of summer, that we are approaching back to the countdown to shorter, gloomier days.
And what a turn of fortunes for farmers: from waiting impatiently for a little precipitation to get enough moisture to begin seeding to the concern that there might be a severe frost one of these nights spoiling the seeds and killing hopes for a good crop.
For me, it is very ironic that this weather pattern showed itself at the time of this year’s graduation at area schools.
Maybe it is a timely warning to the graduates that not everything will work out as they want or plan in their lives.
As our new graduates take off their gowns and suits after their grad ceremonies and prepare to take the first steps in their journey leading to the next phase of their lives, they need all the encouragement and motivation in the world to begin those steps with a lot of confidence.
Indeed, at the graduation ceremonies I was present, I repeatedly heard speaker after speaker challenge graduands to take bold steps, to pursue their dreams and not to give up when they fail.
Listening to those speeches, I also pondered how these young individuals setting sail to new horizons would inevitably falter at one or the other stage of their lives due to some unforeseen circumstances, be it a disease, a failed business venture, or a broken relationship.
That everybody falls at one or another period of their adventure called life is nothing new.
Wise men say, though, it is not why or how one falls, but it is how one can get back on one’s feet that can make an individual stand out and open the gates to an accomplished life.
One of those wise men, Friedrich Nietzche, the renowned German philosopher, said “What fails to kill me can only render me stronger.”
As our graduands/graduates begin to wake up from their dream-laden trips over the clouds over the last few weeks and get ready to face the tough facts of life, one word should be gradually but firmly engraved in their mindset as well as others.
That word is prudence.
There is room for a lot of hope that this kind of mature thinking has already made inroads in the minds of the young adults being seen off to their independence these days.
The proof for that hope is the concluding sentence from a valedictorian speech I heard last week:
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t expect life’s very best, if you’re not giving it your very best.”