|
Ethan and the BellowsFreeAcademy class of 2008
Thank you for this honor.
There is no place I would rather be right now. You have bestowed a great honor upon me.
An honor, truly an honor and I Thank You. Well gang look at this, No Carhart labels here and a pink tie, how about that?
Well Ethan came to me about 5 weeks ago and asked me to consider giving this talk to you today.
At first I was surprised at the invitation and then a little scared of the responsibility.
Would I be able to do justice to this responsibility?
There is a life long concept here that is a central theme of this talk today: Believing in Yourself
On my drive home my mind was in overdrive and I began to scribble notes onto a pad of paper next to me.
I soon said to myself that this sounds too much like a lecture.
And then I thought, hey this could be my last lecture.
What should I say to you if it was my last chance to ever see you again?
Then I remembered a book I had just bought two days before, but had not yet read called The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.
This must be where I’m getting the idea about my last lecture.
So I did read his book and wow.
This book stands among the best I’ve ever picked up.
I only wish something like this had been around 45 years ago when I was your age.
The book is about Randy, his growing up, becoming a college professor, working hard, getting married at 39, having three kids, and then being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of any cancer.
A 5% survival rate.
Randy admits that he does not have a long or bright future ahead.
But he is doing something about the time he has left here.
As it turns out the last lecture is part of a series of lectures given occasionally at Randy’s school CarnegieMellonUniversity in Pennsylvania.
The series is normally given by perfectly healthy individuals.
They are asked, If it was their last lecture what is it they would want to leave behind, what would they want to say to their students
Well Randy was asked if he would like to participate in the series.
However, in this case it really has much more meaning because it possibly would be his last lecture.
He took on the challenge, even though he was going through cancer therapy.
He wanted to be able to leave something behind for his three kids. He wanted to tell them who their dad was and to tell them all those things he would never get to teach them as they grew up.
However, he did much more than that as it seems all of us who have watched the lecture have become his kids.
The total time for the lecture is 77 minutes and is filled with pictures of his youth and how he has managed to live most of his childhood dreams.
He called it “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”.
I cannot say enough about Randy Pausch.
He has made me laugh and has also made me cry more than once.
And he has made me think about life.
If I give you anything today, it’s to go find out about this man and his zest for life, even as he faces death.
He is an inspiration to us all.
Although there is a great difference in our ages we are in some ways very much alike
You the BFA high school class of 2008 and myself retiring from a teaching career, both of us having spent the last 13 years here at BFA.
This is also the last class I taught Tech Ed to when you were 7th graders
We are both ending an era of our lives and moving onto other discoveries and challenges.
Now don’t think, for a minute that I’m going to really retire and layout in a hammock all day drinking iced tea.
A retirement such as that is just not for me.
I am just retiring from teaching.
I am now going to live some of my “Other dreams”.
It was two years ago that I began making a list of the things I wanted to accomplish in retirement.
First, there are those things that have always been there for a long time that I have to do.
I started building my house fifteen years ago and still have some things to finish up.
There is the furniture I want to build, in order to leave something behind for my kids
I have three old sports cars that have been waiting on the sidelines of my yard and driveway for a new life.
I have had this dream of rebuilding these cars for the past 18 years
Instead, I’ve worked on my house and raised my family. (Head Fake 1 - Delayed Gratification)
Sue, my wife and I want to travel to revisit old places and go out to discover new ones.
We both want to retrace our heritage back to England.
These are things I want to do and accomplish before I am really too old to do it anymore.
When we find ourselves on our death bed, it’s not the things we did in life that we regret it’s the things we didn’t do.
So, you can see, I have some very specific goals for my future.
I am not going to let my future life happen to me, I’m going make it happen (Head Fake 2 – Setting Goals)
But at the same time I’m a bit apprehensive about my future.
A little bit scared, but very excited at the same time.
It is hard to leave BFA, But I believe it’s my time to move on.
And so it is with you.
Many of you have dreams about your new life,
a new beginning new discoveries
traveling to new places learning new skills
improving old ones making new friends
and many new decisions to make.
And I bet you all are a bit apprehensive about that future and a bit apprehensive about leaving BFA behind.
An era in your lives is over and will never be able to be relived.
So as you can see we are very much alike.
Now, of course, we wouldn’t be leaving it all behind, BellowsFreeAcademy, the community of Fairfax, your families and many friends will always be around somewhere.
But you are none the less moving onto new discoveries and challenges.
Ok, so here we are 0 to 100 We are both looking forward to our futures but for a few minutes I’m going to look back onto my past which is your future that I’ve already lived and talk about what I think is important to me today Not from your perspective, mine
It’s from my perspective, not yours.
What do I see today that is important to me?
First let me list those things I want to be remembered for:
Not always have I succeeded at these, but these are the things in life that have become important to me.
The 1st is the most important
I want to be known and remembered as a good father and husband
I want to be remembered as a good teacher
I want to be remembered as a person with a strong work ethic
I want to be remembered as being honest and trustworthy
I want to be a good friend and be remembered as someone my friends could depend on
I want to be remembered as a giver and not a taker
I want to be remembered by my peers as being knowledgeable about the many subjects that interest me
I want to be remembered as a person that respects and contributes to our great country
I want to be able to make things of value that others would desire and that I would want to sign my name to
Notice that all of these things are not really about things
But about my traits, principles and values and about what other people think about me
Remember that I said I may not have achieved all these goals in life but I try to because I place value in them
Now think about what I have said and also think about the things you value and want to achieve.
How are you now going to achieve them?
Here are just some of my concepts for success:
#1. Strive for excellence in everything you do
It is not good enough to just get by.
If you want to be really successful in life you have got to strive for the best in everything you do
You will not always succeed
but the striving for excellence is what is important.
I’ll repeat that because it’s important:
You will not always succeed but the striving for excellence is what is important.
It becomes habit and habit is strong
Make it a habit: striving for excellence
Excellence at work
Excellence in your daily life
And Excellence in your personal relationships
Remember that word: Excellence- it’s one of my favorites
Also remember that I said you will not always be successful
And that leads me into my next concept:
#2. Failure
Successful people are not afraid to fail. They don’t want to fail, but they are not afraid to fail.
They accept their failures and continue on, knowing that failure is a natural consequence of trying.
Randy Pausch takes it to another level:
Failure is not just acceptable, it’s often essential.
So failure is normal, get used to it, accept it and use it to your advantage because failure tells you what not to do.
It can also be called experience.
One final cliché
Failure is not the worst thing in the world
The worst thing is to give up when we do fail
This next concept I have struggled with in the past when I was young and even to a limited degree today, as I was a bit reluctant to stand in front of you today
#3. Believing in yourself
I have been very fortunate to do some really neat things in my life, and the following are some of the highlights of my career
I became a teacher, teaching subjects I had a passion for
I completely rebuilt and sailed a 30’ wooden sailboat
I designed, built and ran a fitnessCenter
I have had the opportunity to train and work with hockey players at the highest levels
I designed and built our existing house in Williston
And I am standing here before you today
But there was a time, if I were told that these things were going happen to me, I’d have said “No Way, not me”
Each one of these personal successes I have listed became passions in my life and when that happened nothing could get in my way, not even my weaknesses (Head Fake 3 Passion)
It wasn’t, however, always the case
You see for many years as a kid and all through school I struggled academically
I struggled a lot, even failing the 7th grade and eventually flunking out of college the first time.
The second time I attended college I was on the dean’s list more than once because I had found one of my passions in life: I wanted to teach Physical Education (Head Fake 3 again - Passion)
Earlier in my life I just did not see myself being successful
I had many failures along the way but for some reason I never gave up (Head Fake 4 Persistence)
One the gifts I’ve been given was my ability to accept my failures and move on. I’ve always been an optimist.
Things will work out.
And for the most part it has worked out.
The point I’m trying to make here is to believe in your ability to do anything you want.
If I can achieve the things I have with my academic weaknesses so can you achieve anything you want.
For too many years I just never believed in myself so I never dreamed big enough.
If you can dream and believe in your ability to achieve great things you will surely get there sooner than I did
For you, I’m telling you it’s OK to dream and dream big.
Do it Now!
Believe in Yourself to achieve anything you want.
Before I conclude
I would certainly be remiss in not mentioning the group of teachers sitting here with us today.
Many of you may not understand the dedication they have in bringing you to this point in your lives.
There are many, many long hours spent behind the scenes to not only improve their ability to be good teachers and but also the time taken to prepare a positive learning experience in the classroom.
I know from my relationship with them and by how I personally feel about you that they really do care about you and want you to lead a happy and productive life.
They have invested part of themselves into your success.
So please take the time to thank them both today and in the future.
As you grow older you’ll come to more fully understand the role they played in your success.
Stay connected with them.
I know some of you may not think what I’ve said today makes much sense to you now.
But here is what I want you to do.
It’s your last homework assignment from High School.
But it has no due date. And it’s optional.
In the next day or two get onto your computer and find the link or page that Mr. Reeves has set up for me.
I’ve included a copy of this talk today
The internet site to Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture and others related to it
Books to read And Pages with my favorite clichés and quotes
Download it onto your computer and save it somewhere special so you will not forget it.
Read it once in a while. And reflect on it.
Does it make more sense now?
Which of course will be in the future.
OK finally here’s the Conclusion
Remember what I’ve talked about today:
The Things that are important to me today as I look back on my life
The principles and values I have worked hard to achieve
And some the of the concepts that will help you to become successful adults
Striving for Excellence
Using Failure in a positive way
Believing in yourself
And as Randy Pausch would put it, a few head fakes:
Finding your Passion Persistence Setting Goals and Delayed Gratification
Begin to believe in yourself now, don’t wait for it to find you like I did.
So gang that’s it, the world according to Ligon.
Now this last statement is about both of us because remember we are somewhat alike
I took this from the Walt Disney movie, The Little Mermaid and it is what my kids used to say when we were out on some adventure:
“We are out to discover”
|
