College and high school graduations will be taking place nationwide beginning this weekend. UW–Platteville’s commencements are Saturday, and Ripon College’s is Sunday.

I admit that I have no idea what any speaker said at my La Follette High School graduation in 1983 or my UW graduation in 1988. It may have been the echo in the UW Fieldhouse in the first case, or the speeches blowing in the wind in the latter (back when UW graduations were at Camp Randall Stadium).

I wrote a graduation speech several years ago that I’ve given once at a high school academic awards banquet. It got a standing ovation, either because of its brilliance or as recognition that I was finally done talking. It certainly had more words than the graduation speech inaccurately attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, the complete content of which is the last two words in this headline.

Charles Wheelan, who graduated from college the same year I did, wrote a graduation speech with interesting advice in the Wall Street Journal:

… the saccharine and over-optimistic words of the typical commencement address hold few of the lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead. Here, then, is what I wish someone had told the Class of 1988:

1. Your time in fraternity basements was well spent. The same goes for the time you spent playing intramural sports, working on the school newspaper or just hanging with friends. Research tells us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings. Look around today. Certainly one benchmark of your postgraduation success should be how many of these people are still your close friends in 10 or 20 years.

2. Some of your worst days lie ahead.Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. …

3. Don’t make the world worse. I know that I’m supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I’m going to lower the bar here: Just don’t use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. …

8. Don’t model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee—and so on. But only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don’t let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are “shirking” your work. But it’s also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship. That’s just not how we usually think of it.

9. It’s all borrowed time. You shouldn’t take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the “hit by a bus” rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don’t get hit by a bus.

10. Don’t try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn’t, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.

In a different vein, WTMJ radio’s Charlie Sykes has 11 rules, which include:

Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. …

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure. …

Rule 6: If you screw up, it’s not your parents’ fault so don’t whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are.  So before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer.  This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

The problem, of course, with all this advice is that advice is wasted on those who aren’t listening to it. College graduates may think they know everything, but they don’t even know what they don’t know, to channel Donald Rumsfeld. (Similar to new newspaper editors after two days.)

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