Unveiling the Light

Okay graduates, congratulations on your success! You’ve made it and have passed a major milestone in your life. High School or college is finally over. So what is your next move? Have you set yourself a goal yet? Have you decided what it is that you are going to do with your life? Have you considered the big questions? “Why am I here? What am I going to do with my life? What do I want to accomplish? How do I want to be remembered?”

Older adults are full of advice on what to do and how to do it. You, like most young people, will ignore most of this advice and make many of the same mistakes shared by previous generations. Few people are able to take advice to heart. We all think we are different and somehow immune to the problems others encountered. Those who do listen and try to avoid the same pitfalls others have experienced are blessed indeed, but perhaps it is only by making mistakes that we come to maturity. It is a passage towards humility which we must all take sooner or later and the sooner it is accomplished the better.

However, there is one bit of advice that you should all listen to and if I took a poll I am sure that 95% or more would agree with the one most important thing you should understand. It is the one thing your elders envy you for and the one reason we would like, perhaps, to change places with you. We older adults understand that being young is not easy. You are usually poor, have few assets, are going through continuous change in yourself and with those you depend on and you face many challenges. But you have one thing we all envy and that is potential. If there is one thing I wish you could understand is the potential you have at this time in your life.

Potential is the ability to accomplish goals and to remake yourself into something more than you are now. It is the ability to make a big difference, perhaps beginning now but mainly in the future. It is something that must be grasped as it exists and put to use for it become less and less potent with time. Potential lost now is gone forever and potential not utilized is soon lost. Potential is utilized when it is mixed with goals, work and determination. Together these ingredients will yield realization of becoming much more than you are now and of making a real contribution to the world.

You may feel that potential but may not understand how to put it to use. You have to have a worthwhile goal. That goal should be real and meaningful. “Making more money,” does not qualify! Not that money is bad but how will you use it? "Becoming famous," also does not qualify! What will you do with that fame? The world has plenty of rich and famous people who contribute little and perhaps cause the world to be worse that it would be. A worthy goal would always leave the world better than you found it. It should be integrated with the realization that you can not only be more than what you are today but that you are also part of something much larger than yourself. A life lived for one self is by nature, self destructive. A life lived for others can be beautiful and memorable.

This world needs young men and women of potential who see the beauty of life. It needs young people who do also see the corruption, moral decay, poverty and deceit so often found in life today and who refuse to accept it. The world needs warriors for the good life, for loving families, caring communities, and personal freedom that allows all to see and reach their potential as well. We need young men and women who are less worried about their own wealth and reputation and are more concerned with their own values, how they live out those values and how they add to the goodness of life in general.

In this high time in which you find yourself with new found freedom as well as face choices and an uncertain future, I hope and pray that you will take some quiet time to take stock of yourself and your potential. Instead of deciding now what position you want to hold someday, what type of house you want or what life style you can obtain, try deciding first what values you hold dear, what kind of person you want to be, how you want others to see you and what you want to contribute to the world in the way you live your life.

There will be many in this world who will try to beat down your ideals and tell you to “get real” but many of them will have already lost their potential. They will see your loss of values and standards of behavior as validation for their own poor behavior. Instead, why not stick to your ideals? You do not have to accept the corruption found in the world! Instead accept the good and fight the corruption. Dare to live your lives with high standards and values that make you an example for others to follow. You can be the generation that leads us to better times. You can be part of the great change that surely must come.

The world needs a caring generation that sees not just our problems but our capability as well. Your greatest potential is to be the catalyst that changes our path. We have had enough of the “me generation” that leaves so many lost and discouraged. We need a sense of community and a sense of the greater good. Your potential is to help bring about that change by adopting the positive outlook that can inspire others. Whatever you decide to do in the way of career, your greatest potential is not in what you do but in how you do it. It is not in what you accomplish but in who you are. Don’t sell yourself short. You only go through this life once. Make it count. Make yours a life of which both you and your descendants will be proud.

We will all face that last day and that last judgment far sooner than we care to contemplate. Before you know it your youth and your potential will slip away. Prepare now and be at peace with the life you will reflect on when that time comes. The only things worth earning in this life are intangibles. They cannot be carried, saved or hoarded. They can only be earned and once earned can never be lost. They begin with love and are built not only with good intentions but with good and honorable actions as well. These are the things that last forever and bind us with the one God who loves all.
Father Steven Foppiano