Editorial

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And So We Commence
Nobody asked us to give a commencement address this year so we figured we'd just do one here. Wherever you are has got to be more comfortable than those crappy folding chairs, so here goes:
Commencement means beginning. Some of you graduates may be seeing it as an end to the part of your education society deems compulsory. That's wrong. Your education goes on no matter what, because life is compulsory and so is learning. Sure, your choices ahead are about what you're going to do, but they're really about learning to become the best human being you can be. You'll probably change some in the coming years, but you'll always be the exact same person you already are now. Anybody who says that's not so just doesn't remember themselves at your age. And hopefully at 17 or 18 you're smart enough to accept that you could still use a little direction once in a while. So here's ours, which you're free and encouraged to recycle any way you see fit.

The Phoenicia Times' Advice to Graduates:
1. If you're going to do something, really do it. If you can't commit to trying, do something else.
2. If it's something you've done before, next time do it better by really concentrating on it. Either get something out of it, or don't bother. If you're thinking about something you haven't done before, try it. It may or may not be what you think, but if you don't try you'll never know.
3. If you're afraid, especially of failing, get over it. Fear and creativity can't coexist, and one or the other is going to dominate the choices you make in life. So pick the one you can live with, without regret. Most people make the wrong choice here. Don't.
4. If you don't know something, ask. If asked, you have to tell the truth. You can withhold a little bit so as not to cause suffering, but that's it. If you need help, ask for help. That's why we have each other.
5. Don't waste time thinking about stupid stuff. You are what you think. That's why the quality of your dialogue with yourself matters, and that's why you have a brain full of critical faculties.
6. Those critical faculties are not you. Only you know who you are, and you don't know yet. Get used to it, because it may be a while before you resolve this.
7. Look on everyone with compassion, it's the only way to accept ourselves. And stop judging people and projecting motivations onto them; none of us are qualified for that and most of us are trying very hard to do the best we can.
8. Try to stay open to experience and clear of your own preconceptions. If it's too easy, leave it. If it's too hard, it's either yours to solve or yours to drop. What feels right is probably right, what feels wrong is definitely wrong.
9. All you really have is the attitude you bring to each day. Everything else is just vanity and projection. Lose those and you'll find yourself. Hang on to them and all you'll find is what others see when they look at you.
10. Life's a trip, and your traveling companions can only bring as much or as little self-awareness as they've got. If they're packing lots of baggage, you're going to end up carrying it. So weigh that baggage carefully because things tend to get heavy.
11. You are not who you think you are. You are what you think about and what you feel. And you can trust your intuition so long as you're sure it's not being colored by your own fears or projections or those of others. That intuition, that self-awareness, is your connection to the Spirit that brought you here. Your work, your job, is to find a way to accomplish whatever it tells you needs to be accomplished.
12. Everything matters, every second counts even if you don't use them all perfectly. No one does, so lighten up. It only gets better, I promise. But you're going to have to love one another and trust yourselves better than those of us who've been your teachers.
On behalf of your parents generation, I want to apologize for the state of the planet you are inheriting from us. We have screwed up nearly beyond what's imaginable, and having brought you into this world, we should have done better. But now we're counting on you for that. We're counting on your being smarter and better attuned at a younger age than we were, and we've given you the best values we can. And whatever sacrifices it's taken we'd do it again in a heartbeat because we love you and we believe in you and we need you as much as you've needed us.
BP