10 Truths for the Class of 2010
by Ashley Mondale, English Teacher
May 25, 2010
To the Class of 2010:
Ten years ago, I graduated from high school. I sat on a plastic chair on Davis Field in Vandergrift sweating profusely as the warm June sun beat down on me covered with a polyester cap and gown. And as I sat there surrounded by people I had known since the day I was born, since I was three, since two days ago in the case of the guy sitting beside me, I took a deep breath and held it in. This was the moment I had longed for and dreaded for as long as I could remember. Soon I would lose the title of Kiski Area student, a title that had branded me for the past 13 years. By the end of the day I would be someone new, someone different, someone I wasn’t sure of yet. But it felt great.
Since that graduation day I have gone out into the world and lived my life. I grew and changed and matured. I became someone I had only dreamed of becoming. And now as I pause to look back over those 10 years, I can see my successes and failures, my joys and sorrows. I learned some things about life along the way, and as one of your class advisers I offer to you, Class of 2010, 10 truths.
1. Events reveal who you are; they don’t define you. Every day you all carry baggage around with you. This emotional, and even sometimes physical, baggage has in many ways defined your life thus far. But once you leave the hallowed halls of Leechburg, you can move on. You will meet people who don’t remember the time you cried hysterically in third grade when your parents got a divorce. No one outside of this town will know it was you who tripped going up the stairs the first day of sixth grade. From this moment on, you have the chance to be the person you want to be until the day you die.
2. Lying is always bad. This is simple; a lie is always wrong. Even when you think you are lying to protect someone you love, it can, and most of the time will, come back to bite you. Be honest, all the time, every day, even to yourself. Author Robert Lewis Stevenson believed this when he wrote: “The cruelest lies are often told in silence.” Lies are poison. It takes courage to tell the truth, but you will only grow and become stronger.
3. You can’t fake love. If you try to force yourself into a relationship, things will only end badly. Love in this case isn’t simply romantic love between couples; it is the love of anything. If you aren’t in love with your major in college, change it. If you dread waking up and going to your job every morning, get a new one. Life is too short not to spend it doing the things that make you happy. If you don’t love who you are and what you do, how are you supposed to love anyone else? Fall in real, true, heart-pounding, die-without-it love with yourself, your career, your boyfriend or girlfriend, life.
4. Mean is always mean. People change their looks, their jobs, their styles, but one thing tends to always stick – a mean streak. When a person belittles you, demeans your worth, speaks to you with hate, that person will probably not change. You are good and pure and worth more than you know right now. Don’t let others be mean to you. You simply don’t deserve it.
5. No one is perfect. Everyone is flawed; that’s what makes us humans. The smart thing to do is not to seek perfection in others, or even yourself. The right thing to do is to find the things in others that are compatible with and appealing to you. Find the roommate who doesn’t mind that you leave half-full pop cans all around the room. Find the boyfriend or girlfriend who fulfills you and whom you fulfill. Accept the flaws and build a solid foundation around them.
6. Asking for helps shows strength, not weakness. When you ask for help, you run the risk of seeming vulnerable. Do it anyhow. If you don’t ask for help, you miss out of things you couldn’t imagine. What if you are sitting in a classroom and the professor is going on and on about chlorofluorocarbons and you have no clue what he means? It’s better to feel embarrassed for the 30 odd seconds it takes you to ask the question and get the answer, than to fail the test. Chances are there is someone else in the room who also is confused. Don’t pretend that you don’t need help.
7. Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground. Dream big. Seize the day. Reach for the stars, but don’t forget to work to get what you want. You have unlimited possibilities waiting for you, and it’s sometimes easy to lose focus and become distracted. You will do well to remember that if you keep your dream in front of you and continually work hard, those unlimited possibilities become real and part of who you are. Don’t give in and let your dreams pass you by. Go and get them. But work for them because then you will truly enjoy your successes.
8. Opening yourself up lets you find yourself. Once you leave this school, you will experience life in a brand new way. You need to open yourself up to people, experiences and places that are foreign to you. Only through your willingness to try something different will you learn who you really are.
9. Forgiveness is a hard, but necessary, pill to swallow. The saying goes that forgiveness is divine, and that’s true. It’s hard to forgive those who have wronged you. Trust me, I know. I’m still working on forgiving. But the thing is if you don’t, you run the risk of become bitter. Saying that you accept the errors of others is a strength that few people come across naturally. You need to work at learning to forgive. You’ll feel better about yourself when you do.
10. Failure is good. Think back to when you were little. When you learned to walk, you fell down, a lot. When you learned to ride a bike, you fell off and scraped your knees. But all of those bumps, bruises, and scabs became a part of you. You failed. You learned from those failures. You took those lessons, and they made you a better walker and rider. Don’t be afraid of failure. I know it’s scary to think about, but in my experiences, I learned more from what I did wrong than from what I did right. I think Thomas Edison had the right idea when he said that in creating the light bulb he didn’t fail, he just found about 10,000 ways that didn’t work. What if Edison had given up and didn’t learn from those 10,000 wrong ways? Imagine a world without his successes. Fail. Fail greatly. Fail epically. Then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go forward smarter, braver, better. |
[comments]
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| Tips are for all time |
Posted by "Kiersten Horrell" on February 10, at 3:53 p.m.
This column offers great advice. These tips can definitely apply to any of the classes, not just the class of 2010. I hope that when I am out there on my own I think back to these 10 simple lessons. Each of them will help me grow as an individual along with helping me to form healthy relationships.
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| Pays to be nice |
Posted by "Ms. Moran" on December 10, at 12:37 p.m.
Mean IS always mean. Don't you just love kind people? Don't you just love, love, love those folks who are genuinely, consistently kind? I sure know I do. We should all strive to be one of those people. My favorite gravestone memorial has always been "She was good while she lasted." "She was kind" would be a nice memorial as well. Thanks, Ms. Mondale. |
| 10 truths not just for 2010 grads |
Posted by "Kelly Klingensmith" on November 10, at 7:10 p.m.
Although I am not in the class of 2010, I really like these truths. They really are true if you sit down and think about it. |
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