The most important graduation speech (at least for me)

A few days ago, I got a message asking me to be a guest speaker at a virtual graduation. I was told that my experience in the industry would be a great help in pursuing their dreams and to aim high in becoming the best versions of themselves.

Then I asked myself, what should I share that would leave a mark on these students? Will my words be powerful enough to have a long-term impact on them?

I’ll take my best shot.

I will not bore you with a talk about my career as a pastry chef (which is most likely the content of some graduation speeches, success). With me giving this speech is timely because I just had this conversation the other night with one of our shareholders about “character” and how the youth is forgetting the importance of this today. So today, I’ll focus on two important things — becoming the best version of yourself first and doing this while pursuing success.

Back in college, I was so infatuated with the idea of success, that I started creating my own timeline, and along with this were set standards that I should keep up --that by this certain age I must land this job, buy the latest smartphone, drive my dream car, and own my dream house. I was so focused on being successful that I almost lost myself along the way --who I truly am, what really matters to me, and what makes me joyful.

Growing up, we were always told to study hard and finish with flying colors because this would guarantee better careers. With this in mind, we were so inclined to building our career that we never really put much thought into building ourselves, our character.

The personal values that we need to develop (kindness, honesty, creativity, integrity, independence, sincerity) are now being replaced with the thirst for external validation --needing more social media followers or likes, taking pictures solely for the purpose of getting a cool feed; The principles that we should live by (forgiveness, gratefulness, faithfulness) are now being replaced with the fondness of criticizing others, laughing at other people’s misfortunes, and even pranking people maliciously.

This is not the generation that we would like to be remembered by and eventually become, do we?

Social proof plays a big part in this, and it’s even trickier now that it’s mixed with social media influence. What most people think and do, we think and do as well out of the desire for approval, and it doesn’t even matter anymore whether we think it’s right or wrong. We just go along. For us to create the best versions of ourselves, we need to be independent thinkers and doers. Do what’s right. Let’s cultivate our values. Let’s stick to our principles. Let’s build our characters.

Collapse the timeline you’ve created and run at your own pace. You’ll just exhaust yourself if you keep chasing others. Break the walls you’ve built, embark on an adventure. You’ll realize how uplifting new experiences are. Listen more, say nothing. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll learn from others.

Most of us are happy, but not joyful. My take on happiness now is that, it’s external and all of us can experience it (from a memorable activity, good company, sumptuous food), but not most people experience joy, joy is something internal and that’s from within. It is the by-product of a moral lifestyle. And I think one reason for that is we live for the wrong values in life, material things, pleasure, power, popularity, always being right, prestige, and we invested most of our time and spent most of our years chasing these values and when we achieved everything and we look back, then we’ll realized we have missed the most important thing, to enjoy.

As you embark on this new phase in your life, always remind yourself to enjoy and embrace every second of it. The world is your oyster, yours to take and devour. Congratulations!

Gerard Apurado

Pastry chef/blogger at LifeBeyondWhisks