I haven't posted in a few days, as I moved through some fun events in my hometown of Miles City, MT. Last Saturday, I had a book signing in my favorite gift shop in the world—Pleasantries; I offered the message in the First Presbyterian Church where I grew up on Sunday and Monday, I offered the commencement address at the Custer County District High School Class of 2009 Graduation! It was all a wonderful three-days of connecting with new friends and old, and spending time with 130+ seniors in high school. It was an honor and a privilege to speak to a packed gymnasium about the few simple tips I had for those seniors...and for us all. Here is the text of the address delivered on May 25, 2009:



Raise your hand if you have been asked recently what you are going to DO after high school. And to the parents and friends gathered here today, raise your hand if you’re still trying to figure out what it was you were supposed to do after high school!

It is a loaded question and one I’d like to encourage us to quit asking. Instead of thinking about what it is you’ll do…I’d like to ask you, what will you be? And of course, because I am a mother, I already have some suggested answers for you.

I’d like you each to be thoughtful. I don’t mean well mannered or that you will always remember to send cards when Hallmark suggests you should. I mean…thoughtful as in learning to stop and think. Think about how other people see things. A thoughtful person takes the time to listen to what others think and feel…to hear the truth in another point of view. There are many ways to be right. Be thoughtful.

Be generous. Be generous with your time, generous with your stuff, generous with your money. When you give, give generously and completely with no strings attached. Be especially generous with forgiveness…forgiving of others and forgiving of yourself. Be generous.

Be less concerned about what happens to you and more concerned about what happens through you. A person who has just done something heroic often tells reporters, “I was just in the right place at the right time.” Well, you are always in the right place at the right time. If you are in a conflict, be the peacemaker. If you are lonely, be the one who reaches out to lift up another. The days of “everything bad always happens to me” pathetic thinking should have ended when you graduated from elementary school. To be of true significance in this world, you must be bigger than playing the victim. You must think more about what you can bring to a situation than what you can take from it—whether it’s a job, or a relationship. You are not meant to think less of yourself, just think of yourself less often.

If you do those three things—if you learn to be thoughtful and to listen thoughtfully; to be generous and to think less about what happens to you and more about what happens through you—I can nearly guarantee something else you will be—content. Maybe even…happy. When you master the art of building a good character…of being a good person…what you do is secondary. People will remember how you chose to be. They will not remember where you went to college, or whether you went to college, but they’ll remember if you were a good person. So in the immortal words of President John Adams, Be good. Do good.

And finally, it’s much easier to do good when you come from a place like Miles City, Montana. Today, some of you may be so eager to get out of this school and this town that you can’t get to the highway quick enough. But I guarantee you, you are already a better person because you started here. Who else has a school song where you get to yell, CHEE CHAW HA HA HA! CHEE CHAW HAW HAW HA! STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE!? You are blessed beyond measure to come from this place.

And you are in outstanding company. The people I graduated with went on to do some amazing things…one classmate is an executive with Apple computer; another is a sales and marketing manager for a hotel company in Germany; one is an architect who helped design Starbucks across the nation; another rises before the sun every day to feed cattle when it’s below zero; plant wheat; cut hay; harvest wheat; fight grass fires; sponsor church outings, brand catle and shepherd his daughters’ 4-H projects and that’s just a few days in his life. Another who graduated in 1982 never did get a college degree. She works in the family business, is raising two amazing children and was a foster parent to more than 65 perfect strangers. I hope you can be good just like that.

Now go out to be good and do good. Believe in yourselves, but more important, believe in the goodness in others. Take care of the ones you love. Take care of the ones you don’t like. Take care of the strangers around you…of the earth in which you live…take care of each other. And be proud of who you are and who you can be. Be proud to be one of the Cowgirls and Cowboys whose best is yet to come…the Custer County District High School Class of 2009!