Every year at this time I try to pass on some ideas collected from various sources over the last sixty years that the graduating seniors might find helpful.
* Don’t panic about being the leaders of tomorrow: There are at least two generations ahead of you making sure that you won’t get to make any decision that is too important for awhile.
* Don’t get married till you are properly prepared and really want to.
^ Be very skeptical about what you read, hear and even see. Today’s mainstream media is extremely biased in one direction and many of the other media are biased in the opposite direction, except, of course, NSBNEWS.net.
* Experience is a very valuable thing to acquire. It allows you to recognize the same mistake each time you make it.
* Don’t go into heavy debt to acquire a higher education. Take the path you can afford and keep in mind that your education depends much more on yourself than the institution you attend. (Many of the most successful people I know started their higher education at Daytona State College)
* Despite what you may hear in the media, hard work and initiative are still the best tools for success.
* Saving and investing still remain as the best tools for economic security. Failure to save and invest remains a surefire way to economic difficulty.
* Take a tip from Rudyard Kipling and learn to regard both success and failure as impostors.
* Take a tip from Yogi Berra: You can hear a lot by listening, you can see a lot by watching and when you reach the fork in the road take it.
Lots of luck from your's truly, the class of 1953...