OPINION A note to graduates: Trust the process

ROSLYN RYAN

Editor

It occurred to me the other day just how tedious graduation advice can sometimes be to receive. After all, how many ways can there possibly be to say that the future is wide open, that you must embrace the journey, or, my personal favorite, that “your attitude is what will determine your altitude”? As it turns out, quite a lot.

In the end, however, almost all graduation advice comes from a place of love, or at least of encouragement, which is really just love with a kicker of motivation thrown in. We all want to impart some small gift of hard-earned wisdom on those just now taking their first steps into that wonderous, but also strange and sometimes bruising world of adulthood. But I know, even as that love rains down on graduates this time of year from proud parents, teachers and others who have seen quite a few years slip by since their own graduations, it can also be a bit much.

Given this, and not feeling the need to add to the cannon of inspirational graduation-themed editorial columns that tend to pepper the pages of local newspapers this time of year, I will simply proffer the following three words that I hope the members of the Class of 2023 will bear in mind as they take their next brave steps: It’s a process.

By this I simply mean that, contrary to what you might have been led to believe, moving the tassle on your graduation cap or hitting a milestone birthday does not suddenly make you an adult. Passing your exams doesn’t impart a trunkload of wisdom that you can suddenly access, and being handed a diploma doesn’t turn you into a different person. If I know anything at all about anything, it is that growing into an adult is an unsteady process, sometimes painfully slow and sometimes lurching violently ahead, and expecting it to be

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