Dear fellow high school seniors,

Before you lies a world brewing in bedlam caused by lack and greed and inattentiveness and false wealth.

Before you is a universe of possibility with many of its doors locked, and within you, wrapped up in your imaginations, your passions, and your capabilities, lies key to one of these veiled opportunities.

You are on the cusp of greatness, and whether or not you will find yourself at the doors of an ivy-covered gate this fall, or whether or not you graduated with a 4.0 GPA, what you decide to do with the rest of your life will have an impact somewhere.

Most of us will decide to create plans for our lives that allow us to live comfortably, choosing careers for the promise of comfortable earnings or for the hope of personal satisfaction.

Nurses for job security.

Painters for constant contentment.

Surgeons for high wages.

I am troubled.

In our hands, in our nation of abundance, we have been wielded great power. With our bountiful opportunities, we will very likely, unfortunately, channel them to the fulfillment of one–to our own individual satisfaction.

I challenge all of us to reach into our depths to resuscitate the parts of us that feel compassion for the plight of others, and then maintain that compassion, that awareness of poor conditions in which many in our planet live in, in order to be promoters of good. We have

so

much

power.

potential.

What are we going to do with it?

I suggest we do good, but no longer with the purpose of gratifying ourselves, rather, for let’s do good for the world outside of ourselves.