Congratulations, Various Classes of 2013. May Nic Cage Be With You.

It’s the time of year. The time of the year when a certain group of people gets to put on robes and participate in ceremonies that celebrate several years’ worth of achievement, whether it be High School, College, Grad School, or Lebowskifest, it is an important right of passage. Recently, I read a commencement address from a man I respect, and it was everything I hoped it would be: Joss Whedon. It made me realize that I had some advice to give to the younger crowd. Now, while I did some of it last year, I have some new advice given my year of growing and changing. And it’s unlikely I’ll be giving the commencement anytime soon, except to my cats whom I’ve gathered and put in little caps and gowns. So here we have it: Bad Shakespeare’s advice for the various classes of 2013.

    Do something stupid. I don’t mean stupid like repeatedly ram your head into a block of ice to see what happens. I mean... Do something that seems stupid at the time. Right now, you’re at the precipice of life. Literally, anything you want is in front of you, even the stupid dreams. ESPECIALLY the stupid dreams. Look, life is easy when you’re even younger than you are now... you want to be a ballerina or actor or dinosaur or writer or the guy that tells Natalie Portman she looks good in that dress... and then someone says, “hey. Be responsible. Get a real job!” Then you do it. And you end up languishing in a cubical for 10 years because hey... you got a real job! You’re miserable every single day, but you got that real job! Too quickly the backup jobs we take just while we try to do our own things become our “real jobs.” Don’t fall for that trap. Remember what you want to do. Remember who you want to be. I took a “real job” because someone told me that teaching wasn’t a real job. How’s that working out for me? (Spoiler: Not well.)

    Understand that Life is an entity separate from your wants and needs, and Life is going to do what it damn well pleases with you. Call it Life, Fate, Karma, God, Zeus, Nic Cage... it doesn’t matter. Life decides it needs you somewhere, and Life is going to put you there, no matter what your plan is. Funny thing, “planning.” Normally while you are making that list and checking it twice to ensure that you have finished all the classes you need, or you’re on that path to be the youngest CEO of a company, Life has decided that you need to be somewhere else.. Life doesn’t care that you’ve managed to get your degree and on paper you’re the best damn door to door vacuum cleaner salesman in the upper northwest region. Life has decided you need to go down a different path, and that path involves you becoming a chef. Don’t fight it. Which brings me to...

    Don’t ignore the big glowing signs in front of you. I know we’re not all religious or superstitious people. We don’t always look for signs, but they’re around. Sometimes it’s telling you that the person you’re with isn’t the person you’re supposed to be with. Sometimes it’s telling you not to take a job, just because it’s an easy path. Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that at the end of the day, life is pretty easy, actually, if you pay close attention to what it is trying to tell you. Hey, you like to work with microbes? Despite the fact that extra Grad School is difficult, maybe it’s saying you should be a scientist. Like bossing people around? Get a volcano and a cape and get to work on that death ray. (I’m sorry... Particle realignment weapon.) Sometimes it’s as easy as that. Sometimes it’s a raccoon dipping a piece of bacon in peanut butter that won’t let you get to your car. (If anyone figures the last one out, please let me know.)

    Get rid of negative people. Humans are social creatures. And you want to cling to those people who you’ve known the longest, either out of loyalty or fear of losing a part of your past that you wish you could cling to. But as you evolve and change, they’re not always good for you. Sometimes they never were, and you just needed a quick jolt to realize that they’re way to selfish, or they’re taking your energy. It may mean a few times when you feel lonely, even if you aren’t. The important thing to remember is that just because you had those great moments with them (always cherish those great moments) understand and accept that you may not be able to repeat them. And sometimes that means saying goodbye to people, ending what you thought was a friendship to help you down your path. I’m not saying be mean, I’m not saying you have to get rid of your past, I’m just saying because Suzy was a great friend in college and you have a million great stories, doesn’t mean you have a million more with Suzy. Enjoy those memories. But time to move on.

    Don’t make life difficult for other people. This one is important. Don’t be that guy who actively makes life difficult for someone else. If it means holding the door open, letting someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic (a cardinal sin here in Washington, DC) or just not espousing your negativity around people who don’t need it (no one wants to hear why you hate something they’ve done, or how you’re managing to one-up them), just don’t make life difficult for someone else. We’re all on ball of dirt and water floating through the vastness of space, billions of miles an hour with no way to stop or steer... we really don’t need to make it more difficult.

    My last bit of advice, it’s never really too late. One of my favorite stories is about the last words of Voltaire, a particularly... we’ll just say “eccentric” writer. On is deathbed he was being given the last rights when someone asked him, “Do you renounce Satan?”  To which he looked at the Priest and said, “I really don’t think now is the time to be making any enemies.” He ended things with a joke. It’s never too late to do what you want. Yeah, you may not be able to dance professionally. But you can still dance. You may not have anything published, but you can start a blog and at least get your writing out to your friends and a few random people. You can always go to the store and buy a few legos, put them together, and re-enact moments in Star Wars and end the prequel trilogy the way it should have ended. Just don’t wait too long.

    So, various classes of 2013, go forth. Do great things. Even if that thing is great to only yourself or another person.

Very Special Episode, Part 3: Vague Status Updates Make Me...

Ok, so far I’ve thrown out my two very important lessons for high school graduates:

            1. No Tourists

            2. Make mistakes

            Now it’s time to wrap it up. Number three for the week is: Be happy.

            I throw this out there because too often, we force ourselves into little boxes and do what we can to make everyone else happy, while ignoring that little voice in our heads that said, “Hey! You used to write plays! You loved doing that! Why are you placing orders into a computer!”

            Keep in mind; I’m not saying that I’m not equating “Happy” with “Easy.” The two terms are often 

times at odds with each other. A lot of the time they battle it out in the arena of your own mind, right in between the dream of you showing up to class in your pajamas and the images you have of that one time that really hot cheerleader asked you if she could borrow your pen. Her hair was pretty that day. **ahem**

 You may even be miserable in the short run. But as long as you ensure that in the long run you are happy… what does it matter? As long as there is a light at the end of the tunnel, miserable will rarely win.

            This is important, because as you continue to grow up and you lose things like “Spring Break” and “a ton of time to go outside and play” you may find happiness harder to find. Not all the time mind you, but there will be moments you’ll be sitting under those fluorescent lights, wondering how much of your soul they’re quietly stealing while you enter in your fifth work order for the day. (Having goofed off for most of the morning.)

            Find what you want to do with life. You’re not entitled to it, and there will be roughly 90 billion people that will do it better than you. But why let a little thing like that stop you?  You have to hunger for it, to want it. You will have to work for it, but at the end of the day, you’ll appreciate it all the more.

            Sometimes, the scariest thing in the world can be make that choice to be happy. Being miserable can be more fun sometimes. After all… being miserable is the easier choice, as I mentioned. You also get to complain more. You don’t get to complain as much when you’re happy. Your Facebook status updates (Or future social media updates, depending on when you are reading this) may not be as vague and elicit as many questions, but it will be worth it when you can come home and be happy at the end of the day.

But do it. And don’t delay. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Also, remember you’re the only one who can find this happiness. No one else can do it for you.

            Good luck class of 2012.

            (Also, sidenote: When I just rerun this series of essays in a year, someone remind me to change the year there. Thanks.)

Very Special Episode, Part 2: All Hail Our Robot Overlords

           Previously, I mentioned that it is important to participate (No Tourists!). Obviously, I mentioned this first because it is extremely important. This next piece of advice I consider almost as equally important.

            You’re going to make mistakes. Make them. Own them. Hold onto them.

            Hopefully, you’re not a robot. We have a while before the robots plan their invasion of Earth, and they will make their own mistakes that will allow a scrappy band of ragtag misfits to overthrow their leadership. But that’s not for quite a while. My point is that robots make very few mistakes, and you're not one of them.

            No, you are going to make mistakes. The drive to get everything right all the time is only going to lead to more mistakes. It’s important to make them, and learn from them. I know you’ve heard the last part of this advice almost repeatedly, almost to the point that you’re tired of hearing it. But this is true. And I can remember I was so focused on getting things “right” that I didn’t take the time to enjoy my failures. My beautiful, sublime failures.

            You are going to fall in love with the wrong person way too early. You’re going to stay up late watching a Netflix binge of Malcolm In the Middle and be late for that “really important” Chem Lab in the morning. You’re going to be in all the wrong classes, drop them, and start taking Theatre Classes. You’re going to be in all the right classes, drop them and start taking Theatre Classes. You’re going to decide college isn’t right for you, and you’re going to go in another direction. The list goes on.

            There’s never a mistake so big you can’t correct it. (Except possibly going skinny dipping at Crystal Lake. The dude in the hockey mask coming after you is pretty much relentless.) Just take a deep breath… and enjoy it. Then fix it, as best you can.

Accept that you are going to make mistakes. Just make it count for something. 

Very Special Episode, Part 1: Yippee Kay Yay

           Looking at the ol’ calendar and traffic around the University where I work, I can tell that it is High School Graduation Season. So, I thought this would be a good opportunity to give some advice that I would have liked to have gotten when I graduated from high school.

            The first is a piece of advice that was given to me by one of my grad school professors. I am blatantly ripping this off from him, but he also encouraged me to steal any good advice I come across and use it for my own. (Also: Shakespeare stole everything he ever wrote.) And it’s this: Don’t be a tourist.

            What that means is this: Participate. Don’t just go along for the ride. Too often going along for the ride means going places you don’t want to go. No one really WANTS to be a tourist. Except maybe Johnny Depp in that one movie with Angelina Jolie. But let’s face it, for Angelina Jolie many of us would sell out our deepest held values.

            Where was I? Oh, yes. Don’t be a tourist. Look around during Spring in Washington DC. Tourists are everywhere. They stand in front of you on escalators, then stop right at the top so you can’t get where you’re going. (I saw one screaming at a Metro attendant that the train that left “wasn’t full” all while blissfully unaware that every person in that station could catch fire and he just wouldn’t care.)

            You want to take charge of the action. Bruce Willis saved lives in several Die Hard movies because he didn’t wait for the terrorists to come to him. He could have been the tourist in each of those situations. (Now that you mention it, he really was in the wrong place at the wrong time…) You have to be the Bruce Willis in each situation you encounter. If you go to college, be the Bruce Willis of that situation. If you choose not to, be the Bruce Willis of that situation.

            It’s all about making your voice heard.

            Yippee Kay Yay.