By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

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 back to those days. Why not, if they were so good?

Because the best days of your life are out there ahead of you after high school.

These are not the best days of your lives, even if they are pretty great days. The best days are still ahead of you! Face the future with courage and eagerness. Carpe diem, y'all!

[David Epps is the rector of Christ the King Church in Peachtree City. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com.]

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