Zach Demars, Cascade High School graduation speech

Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 3, 2017

Zach Demars, Cascade High School

Wow – look where we are! I mean, who ever really thought we’d be right here? When we were in elementary school, people talked about 2017, but it was so far in the future that we didn’t think it existed. Over the past few years though, 2017 has become a reality, and we’ve had our gaze set high on what lies beyond. We’ve focused our time and energy into what we’d be doing in 2018 or 2021, but never really right now. We’ve always viewed Graduation as a landmark and as a stepping stone, but not as a moment to appreciate in itself.

Let’s be honest for a second – you’re not about to do anything great right here. You’re going to sit in a robe for two hours and listen to some people like me, who think they’re all wise and mighty, talk to you about life and who knows what else. Eventually, someone is going to say your name, and you’re going to stand up to shake their hand and take a diploma cover before sitting back down. Now, I’m not an expert in entertainment, but this doesn’t seem very exciting at all. But here’s the fun part – you’re here anyway! You put on that robe, and you showed up outside that door! You brought friends and family, and now everyone’s here, staring at you, waiting for you to do something incredible, but you’ve never really planned what you’d be doing right now.

Let me help you – just keep sitting. You’re all doing a magnificent job. Besides, the whole “planning ahead” thing seems kind of overrated. I mean, there’s no way you could’ve planned for any of this. You can’t plan for your greatest successes, like going to state wrestling or getting a full ride to a competitive program at UW, or getting higher than a C in Pre-calc, and you can’t plan for your greatest struggles, like losing a close friend or a favorite teacher. You didn’t predict any of those things and – spoiler alert – you’ll never be able to! No matter how well you plan, things are probably going to get screwed up, for better or for worse. Thankfully, we’re well experienced in screwing things up – I mean, things getting screwed up and then figuring out how to recover.

That’s really what we’ve been doing all along with the people sitting around us – we’ve struggled and we’ve failed, but we’ve always (or usually) tried again. Even if you and the person next to you are polar opposites, on different ends of every spectrum, you still have this single connection – you’re here, with us, together.

Author and speaker Mark Scharenbroich once claimed that the happiest moment at one’s graduation is not when your name is called and you receive your diploma cover. Given the likelihood of me tripping and falling and, once again, making a fool of myself in front of you all, I have to agree with him. Scharenbroich contends, on the contrary, that the happiest moment of graduation is after all the festivities are over and the graduates are congratulating each other. This is when there are the most smiles: close friends and long-lost acquaintances alike hug each other, and middle-school buddies who haven’t spoken in years pat each other on the back. There’s no judgement – simply excitement, simply the pure connection of having achieved something – together. His assertion begs the question:

Why do we wait until the last possible moment we will be together to recognize those around us and make meaningful connections, and why do we forget to celebrate our commonalities until it’s all over?

Look at the people around you – how many of these people have you ever truly connected with? Maybe 10 or 20? Yet here we are, with people we don’t even know, and won’t even remember, celebrating each other’s success, simply because of our shared experience.

Now, this connection between us all might sound a little weak, and I don’t mean to dwell on the fact that there’s very little time to rectify that. But there’s good news – we’ve got a second chance. In fact, we’ve got a lot of second chances. From today on, we can make the conscious decision to actively connect and treat every day like our graduation, by recognizing and appreciating the person sitting next to us just for who they are instead of what they’re wearing or how they do their hair or what music they’re listening to. Graduates, today we can choose to change nothing but the direction of our tassel, or we can choose to change the direction of how we connect with others to make this world better.

Class of 2017, I thank you for the lessons you’ve taught me and the memories we’ve made. I wish you the best of luck out there and, most importantly, remind you to have fun. I’ll leave you with this: watching the news over the past several months, I can assure you, there’s no more room in the world for mean people, and there’s no more room in the world for people who are unwilling to connect with others. Class of 2017, today is our day! So Why wait?

Go Bruins!