Commentary: Your ego will graduate from high school with you
I can categorically state that I will never be a graduation speaker, but I do have a small addition to the speech I wrote about last year, where I cajoled graduates to be curious. This year, in the face of all that is going on in our country and the world, the message should be: Be brave.
J. D. Salinger, who is still my favorite author, because apparently I am stuck in the ‘60s, wrote in his novella, “Franny and Zooey,” “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody,” which doesn’t seem to make sense.
He then goes on to say, “I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.”
Your future is coming right up, just as soon as you finish celebrating your high school career, which will be in a month or two, when you stop saying, “I’m so glad to be out of here.”
By the way, you will change your mind about that in a few years and wish you were back in high school, in a simpler time when all you had to worry about was what you are going to wear to the party, who likes you, what to do on Saturday and where to surf.
Your future is so cloudy right now. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it’s filled with uncertainties that most of us did not have to face. Your decisions are based on the knowledge we have now in 2016, and there is no promise that any of those surmises will actually be there even in 2017. Being a doctor is changing constantly; being in business is anybody’s guess; a car mechanic has to be a computer genius at this point.
To be honest, it’s a crap shoot.
You live in the most unsure time in our history, and easily the most exciting. This is where Salinger makes sense. We no longer live in a time that the pursuit of fame and fortune have any place.
The next 25 years will not be about just you, just money, just stature, just you anything. The next years will be about us. Us saving the planet, us learning how to work together, play together, create together and live together on a planet that you are going to quickly realize is very small.
You are going to have to give up your ego. I’m sorry, but it’s going to become liberating. Think about it.
You will no longer have to worry about people liking you, respecting you or even being afraid of you. Your thoughts might be on the work you are doing for us, having fun without judgment by us, ways to take care of us.
I know it’s sounds crazy but sometimes Buddhism makes sense. Deepak Chopra once said, “The ego, however is not who you really and truly are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives in approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear. Your true Self, which is your spirit, your soul, is completely free of those things. It is immune to criticism, it is un-fearful of any challenges and it feels beneath no one.”
The Bible addresses the problem of ego many times. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
But here’s the thing: You will have to have that courage that Salinger talks about in “Franny and Zooey” to be absolutely nobody. To give up ego and transition into the new and more fun world of us.
Full disclosure, this graduation speech (that only occurs in my mind) is a perfect example of full blown ego; hoping for respect, admiration and a lot of “likes.”
What the heck, I’m not graduating this year.
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SANDY ASPER lives in Newport Beach.