It’s graduation time again. Even though I doubt I’ll be asked to give a commencement address any time soon, I think I could impart a few nuggets of practical wisdom upon those being newly released into the world. For instance:
1. Even though cats like crawling into tiny, enclosed spaces, it doesn’t mean you should shut the dresser drawer on them.
2. Anything crafted from tofu to resemble other meats is generally a bad idea.
3. The time you spend worrying about how your hair flips or if your pants sit low enough on your hipbones or if you’re wearing the right color eye shadow is time that you will never get back. So just make yourself presentable and get out and enjoy your life.
4. A person who tells you “into every life a little rain must fall,” has probably never experienced a monsoon.
5. A job with a crappy salary is generally more fun than one that pays obscenely well. High paying jobs often mean that you have to either work your ass off or compromise your values. You get to pick.
6. And if your job makes you miserable, you don’t have to stay. (Although it might be a good idea to stick around long enough to learn your coworkers’ names. You might need them later)
7. On that topic: if you work in a specialized profession, be really careful not to piss off any of your coworkers. Even if you think they are complete tools. Odds are you will be working with them (or maybe for them) again. Trust your Aunt Laurie. I’ve done this.
8. Doctors don’t know everything. Just because he or she gives you advice, you don’t have to take it. Although if you have a gaping chest wound, you should probably have someone in a white coat take a look at it.
9. If you avoid making certain important decisions, life has a way of making them for you.
10. It’s best, when driving alone, to stop the car if you have to consult a road map.
11. Just in case no one has ever told you this before, it’s not a good idea to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm or stick your tongue in an electric socket.
12. Not to make light of the second mortgage your parents took out on their house to put you through school, but your fancy diploma is only good for getting your foot in the door. The rest is up to you. And once you’ve reached a certain age, your magna cum whatever doesn’t matter for shit.
13. Don’t loan your boyfriend your credit card. No matter how cute he is. You might never see either of them again.
14. If the person you admire most has a first name of either Brittany or Ethan, you need someone to come to your house and confiscate your television and your iPod immediately.
15. You don’t have to vote the way your friends or parents do. Don’t be a sheep. Learn the facts for yourself.
16. This one is from Husband: Take a long car trip with your intended before the wedding. If you both survive, then you can get married.
17. Try not to leave the house without your underwear, if at all possible.
18. Sleep with a coworker only under the following conditions: 1) One of you is dying; or 2) The two of you have set the wedding date.
19. If your company has their Christmas party on a work night, do everything you can to show up on time the next morning not looking like you got drunk off your ass and left with that guy in Accounting. Wear an inch of makeup. Drink seven cups of coffee. And for God’s sake, stop by your apartment and change first.
20. Something that sounds too good to be true probably is. This applies to dating, job offers, and the Home Shopping Network.
21. If you don’t clean your house regularly, nothing bad will happen to you. Although if attractive personages of your sexual preference come within ten feet of you then make a face and turn away, you should probably do the laundry.
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3 comments:
That's a lot of wisdom you're imparting there. And for free, too. I hope the graduates appreciate it!
A couple points, I think you need to set some deadline (bad, bad pun) parameters on your dying coworker exemption for #18. I mean, if the death is a long way off, it could still blow up on you really badly.
Could you add sticking a bobby pin into an outlet on #11. I'm not necessarily saying that from experience. I mean it.
And I can't tell you how glad I am never to have done #13. Wait. I think I did recently. They both came back, so I think I'm okay, right? But never again. Cross my heart.
I think it would be far more valuable to address high school graduates than college graduates.
Just tell them this:
"Ok, some of you are going straight into the workforce from high school. You have my pity. Your life as one of the working poor will never be glamorous, or exciting, or even particularly fulfilling if you are at all materialistic, so join a church now, and get pious fast.
Some of you are going to college. You have two sets of choices while you are there: your major, and your academic ethic. Screw up either one, and see my above advice to your non-college-bound classmates.
Major in something marketable. Leave Sanskrit for the potheads. Pick an MBA course, or something with computers, or one of the hard sciences, engineering, that kinda thing.
Your academic ethic? Well, it's up to you. You can party hearty, and end up in a crappy job with crappy pay, and have a mediocre life, or you can ignore the potheads and study, and end up one of the alpha males with the nice toys and the six-figure income.
That is all."
(sorry, way too serious)
Tammy - I did the tree thing. While waiting for my mother to pick me up from school. What a rush! But there is a block of time I can't account for. Like, half of kindergarten.
aaa - Serious. But practical. If I had it to do again, I would have ditched the "Human Sexuality" class in favor of, say, macroeconomics.
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