Headmaster's Farewell, Commencement 2008
In just a few moments, you will leave this tent as Millbrook graduates. Before you do, I ask you to “listen up” one more time for a few words of advice and farewell.
In just a few moments, you will leave this tent as Millbrook graduates. Before you do, I ask you to “listen up” one more time for a few words of advice and farewell.
Life is inevitably complex and challenging. It will be unfair, disappointing, and painful.
Life is beautiful, and it is filled with opportunity and wonder and people whose kindness and caring are extraordinary.
Both statements are true. To help you cope with the former and find more of the latter, I offer these suggestions. For many of you, they are simply reminders, as you are well on your way to understanding their value in your lives.
1. Work hard.
2. Expect the best, beginning with yourselves.
3. Care deeply.
4. Show compassion.
5. Smile often.
6. Give to the Annual Fund.
7. Accept failure as inevitable to your learning and necessary for your success.
8. Be courageous.
9. Never, ever compromise your integrity.
10. Be humble.
And finally, remember your teachers fondly, for they, like your parents, are sure to become wiser and more reasonable as you grow older. Or, as Mark Twain wrote, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
