June Graduation Message

It’s graduation time and invariably these occasions call for someone to make a speech. As often these speeches are about life and achieving success, each speech has a way of treading a path of looking forward and how one can seize the future.

So, after the first year of a global pandemic, the 2021 graduation speeches should be especially interesting to hear.

The Two Minute Graduation Speech

Travis Graham was a law student at the University of Tennessee with a reputation among his classmates as a hardworking student, but socially quiet. As class valedictorian, what he would say at the graduation ceremony was a mystery to all. So, after several typically musty speakers, he rose to deliver his address. After the obligatory acknowledgments, he promised to take only two minutes of everyone’s time and got to the heart of his thoughts. Audience attention was then a bit sharper.

What Would You Say to Graduates?

He started by saying that he had had difficulty deciding what “wisdom” to impart at the ceremony. For inspiration, he consulted quote books and speaker’s guides but came away uninspired. He reviewed the cases and the law he had studied and found nothing he felt appropriate to the moment. In fact, he said, he had no idea of what hard-gained understanding-born-of-study he could share until that very morning when he was sitting at his kitchen table, having a breakfast of refrigerated cinnamon rolls.

Poppin’ Fresh Wisdom

There, on the newly opened package, he spotted the lesson he knew he and his fellow graduates had in common, and felt worthy of the occasion.

The package cautioned “KEEP COOL.”

This advice, he was sure, would stand them in good stead all the rest of their lives. He continued after a dramatic pause, it went this succinct wisdom one better, by also advising, “BUT DO NOT FREEZE.”

And with that he thanked all assembled and returned to his seat.

Keep Cool Class of 2021, You Got This