I had the honour of delivering this speech at an online graduation ceremony for a private school in Ontario last week. The Headmaster asked that every graduate of his school receive a copy. It is my hope that other high school graduates benefit from this speech.

You are the graduates of 2020 – the year no one will ever forget in the history of mankind! 🙂 Many might feel sorry for you, knowing that you didn’t receive the graduation experience your predecessors did.

But let this be a BEAUTIFUL lesson to you about perception. Everything happens FOR us, not TO us. We need to look at the gifts in everything that happens to us.

Maybe you are becoming much less stressed out being at home, prior to starting an intensive program at university. Maybe you are able to spend more time or mend relationships with your loved ones before your life becomes crazy busy again. Maybe you have found a way to maintain better balance between doing your work, being creative and relaxing, which you can use in future years.

The more you LOOK for the gifts, the easier it is for you to SEE them. I ask you to think of all the gifts your high school experience gave you – the friends, the new experiences, the sports, your increased knowledge, or the places you visited with the school.

I ask you to think of the lessons you learned from the challenges you underwent, remembering that all lessons are meant to be positive. And if you see the lessons, there are never any “mistakes”.

I ask you to see all of your accomplishments at your school, from the awards you might have received to making someone smile through their tears. Focus on seeing your accomplishments and you will accomplish more.  

Most importantly, I ask you to see the gift of who you are…your teachers and fellow students might have made you aware of some of the strengths and talents you possess. Remember, we all have weaknesses, too, but if we focus on our weaknesses, we will see more and more of our failings over time. We are meant to see more of our strengths and talents, as we go through life and put them to more and more use.

As you leave the safe, protected and smaller environment of your high school and go out into the world, if you focus on everything that is wrong with our world, it will not serve you. But if you focus on finding and using your strengths, talents and what you are passionate about, you will find your way in making this world a better place.

And guess what? Finding your strengths, talents and passions is how you will come to love and respect yourselves and truly be happy. Imagine if EACH person focussed on being the best they could be, how different would our world be?

In order to be the best person you can be, you will need to train your minds to think differently than the majority. For example, it’s easy to think that this world is doomed when you think of our challenges with global warming, viruses, racism, or our ineffective leaders. And it’s easy to do little to try and improve things. And it’s easy to give up on ourselves.

It’s harder to say “I’m going to use my strengths and talents to make this world better.” It’s even harder yet to believe in what’s possible for ourselves and this world.

But here’s the thing, you don’t need to know HOW you are going to contribute to this world and be happy in it. You don’t need to know WHEN you are going to contribute to this world and be happy in it. You only need to FOCUS on the OUTCOME you want, remembering to remain open to all possibilities, willing to ask for help when you need it.

Whatever you dream of doing, over and over again, is what you are meant to do. You wouldn’t keep thinking of the same end goal, over and over again, unless you were meant to achieve it. 

Mankind tends to complicate things. You see, we are meant to do what fills us up inside. We are meant to overcome our challenges. And we are meant to help others overcome their challenges with the knowledge we glean from our experiences.      

In summary, it is vital that you stay focused on your gifts, your positive experiences, the lessons you have learned, your accomplishments, and being the best person you can be. You stay focused on your end goal and you will be the change you want to see in the world, no matter what goes on around you. You do this and I assure you, you will be exceedingly proud of the life you live from this day forward. 

Hi! I’m The Resourceful Mother www.theresourcefulmother.com. I have been connecting families to health and happiness, since 2002. I am an accredited life coach and registered holistic nutritionist, who had two daughters graduate from high school. If you are looking for help in teaching your graduating student how to take the steps to coming to love themselves, so they can see their greatness, I’m offering an online course on July 7, 2020. Please click on this link for more information.