All over the United States,

high school graduations have been, are being, or will be conducted with

much fanfare and excitement. If tradition holds true, many of the commencement

speakers facing the eager, impressionable young adults will say something

like this: "These are the best days of your lives enjoy them. Seize

the day!"

To all of those high school

seniors who hear these words and believe them, I would like to issue an

announcement: These speakers have lied to you!

These are not the

best days of your lives. In fact, the strong probability exists that

the converse is true. These are probably the worst days of your

lives!

I shared these words with several

high school students some months ago and was met with stony disbelief.

"Why," one young lady said, "I'm really enjoying my high

school days. These aren't bad days at all." Doubtless, that is true,

but I still stand by my statement.

I thoroughly enjoyed my days

back at ol' Dobyns-Bennett High School prior to my graduation in 1969

(or was it 1869?). I dated nearly every weekend that I had money (Thank

you, Pam, Nancy, Elaine, and Mindy), played football for a great team,

was a member of the school's first karate team, and was elected, along

with Susan Walker, as a "Kiwanis Club Typical Teen" by the student

body. I had the best of friends in Steve, Mike, David, and the rest of

the kids at Mountain View Methodist Church.

Not everything was wonderful,

of course. My American History teacher hated me, I separated my shoulder

in a game against Morristown East, and I had to make 103 on my Spanish

final exam to pass the course for the year. Sadly, I made a 37 and spent

the summer in a history class to make up for my stupidity. Que pasa, y'all!

Still, I wouldn't go back for

a million bucks.

Oh, I think about it from time

to time. I'd try to study more, I tell myself, if I could do it over.

I'd slug it out with Ricky Salyer, and risk getting thrashed, instead

of backing down that one time in the 10th grade after football practice.

I wouldn't have been so snotty, as jocks tend to be, toward lesser mortals

such as geeks, smart people and band members, I tell myself.

But it's all an illusion.

I'd never go back. Not for a day.

High school is not reality

at all but it shapes, to a frightening degree, much of our self-image.

People who are 50 years old still hold serious grudges suffered at the

hands of people in those long-ago days. Women who are truly beautiful

still see themselves as ugly because of callous comments made by insecure

teenage jerks. Men who were bullied and ridiculed as boys still doubt

their manhood into their adult years. Kids who struggled with grades or

athletics question their self-worth decades after graduation music has

faded.

Here's the truth: In a few

years, it won't matter what student council offices you held or didn't

hold. No one will remember that you played football or that you didn't.

The beauty queen that

wouldn't give you a second look will become a portly housewife, and the

hunk that spurned you will lose his hair and his jowls will sag. You will

undergo serious physical changes as well.

It was only three or four short

years of your life. It will pass into the oblivion of time. It doesn't

matter.

The truth is that your very

best days are ahead. Your true love will probably be found somewhere after

high school. In my case, I found her in a speech class at East Tennessee

State University.

Unless you become a rocket

scientist or a computer wizard, you will never again be bothered by algebra,

trigonometry or calculus.

One of the best things that

will ever happen to you is the birth of your kids, and it gets even better

with grandkids.

You really can start over in

college, or in the military, or on a new job. Every day is new and holds

the potential of change. Even if you were a wallflower in high school,

you can become a leader in your community, maybe even in the nation.

In the days that lie ahead,

you can chart your own course instead of conforming to the crowd. In the

future, you who were academic dummies can excel and achieve.

I graduated with a good solid

80 average, which was a low C back before grade inflation, and wouldn't

have had that if it hadn't been for A grades in phys ed.

Yet, after some growing up,

I earned a 3.0 GPA in college, a 3.8 in graduate school and 3.7 in doctoral

work.

If you weren't an athlete,

you can still become a fit and buff adult. Many of today's bodybuilders

were scrawny geeks in high school. I even know some people who were druggies

and losers in high school who are now police officers, business leaders

and even ministers.

Many of today's political leaders

were too timid to run for student council in their teen years, and many

studies show that the most successful people were well-rounded, average,

C students in high school.

But the true test may be one

that I gave a few months ago in my own congregation. I asked those gathered

on a Sunday morning to raise their hands if they enjoyed their high school

days. Nearly every hand went up.

Then I said, "How many

would go back and live those days over if you could?"

Not one hand went up. Not even

one. No one wanted to go