It’s hard for me to imagine offering advice to someone graduating high school. Before I’m able to even drop a single word, I quickly double-check the results of my own experiences so far tallied and I find my qualifications lacking. I certainly don’t have all the answers – certainly none of the ones I need in my current station in life – but it seems like just only a moment ago, six years, I was in your shoes.

Although I can’t say I’m an example to be followed, I am familiar with the personal identity and emotional dilemmas that brace the teen to early twenty years.

Having just stepped out of them myself, I wish I could go back. They were the best of times. If only someone had told me.

Now it’s hard to offer good advice because really it just an opinion and everybody’s got a million of them. To avoid that, let me be as honest as I can.

First, congratulations to all of you moving ahead to college; make sure you wish those who are not your condolences before you go. Although other options such as joining the military industrial complex or entering a starving blue collar workforce are before you, nothing trumps the advantages gained by a higher education.