All the Graduations – Part 2

No selfies. No TikTok. No phones at all. Of course, my high school graduation was nearly 30 years ago so none of those things were even possible or invented yet. I don’t even think there’s a video of the event anywhere in existence, at least not that I know of. Comparing that to the graduation last Saturday that probably has dozens, if not hundreds, of videos of the students walking across the stage and there are probably a few on YouTube as we speak! The only thing I remember from my graduation is something I did that’s right in line with my Enneagram 4 personality, though I didn’t know that at the time. I wanted to stand out… but at the same time I don’t love attention. So affixing “Hi Mom!” on the top of my graduation cap was an expression of my individuality and a way to show my mom I love her, of course.

At my niece’s graduation there wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary in how the kids expressed themselves apart from little gestures they did as the crossed the stage, knowing they were on the big screen for everyone to see. Also, and this was very cool, students weren’t allowed to have their phones. So just like my graduation in 1997, there were no selfies and no TikTok. Kudos to whoever made that decision for the students. Instead of the distraction that phones can cause, students got to be fully present at their own graduation. If they don’t already, they’ll appreciate this as time goes by. They’ll actually have memories of the moment, go figure! Of course, the only memory I have is the “Hi Mom!” cap so maybe it would’ve been good to have some kind of documentation of it… besides still having it stored in a bin in the shed outside.

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-Out of the Wilderness