{"id":3095,"date":"2023-05-27T11:24:40","date_gmt":"2023-05-27T15:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2023-05-27T11:28:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-27T15:28:13","slug":"think-youre-not-profound-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=3095","title":{"rendered":"Think You’re Not Profound? Think Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

By Deborah Blackwell\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Participating in Harvard University\u2019s Commencement as a press correspondent always made me feel like I was part of something bigger. Much bigger than anything in my own, tiny, self-focused world. Funny how my world doesn\u2019t feel tiny until I see and hear the pomp and circumstance of our country\u2019s first-established university and one of the world\u2019s highest-ranking educational institutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say my own son\u2019s commencements \u2014 plural, last year bachelor\u2019s, this year, master\u2019s \u2014 weren\u2019t amazing. He graduated at the top of his class, and I could not be more proud. In his early 20s, he\u2019s done more than I have at this stage of my own game. But as I watched him in his cap and gown, walking with his peers down the center aisle, I ignored that inner baggage and felt pure present-moment joy. I was bursting with it. And, thankfully, it overshadowed the reality that this was it, he was all grown up, and out of the nest. My nest. The one I built with deep love, care, tenderness, and ease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being a mother came easy for me, it was all I wanted to do in life. I knew as I watched him graduate not once, but twice, my guidance and support, my seeing him for who he truly is, and supporting his journey how he needed, not how I thought it should be, helped him get to this place. A place of honor, of grace, of achievement, and opportunity. He did it. We did it. But I knew, lurking behind that pure joy, was the gaping hole that he left me in the dust. His accomplishments, his excellence, his future, way ahead of whatever I have done in my own life. And I wondered, is excellence is in the eye of the beholder, regardless of what our position is at school, work, or in life itself?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watching UMass\u2019 and Harvard\u2019s commencements unfold \u2014 rites and rituals, acknowledgements, bittersweet sentiments, traditions and transitions \u2014 I thought about regular life. Plain, old, day-in-and-day-out life that creates our character, defines our values, shapes our dreams, dashes our hopes, and sometimes brings us to our knees. What\u2019s happening on those days? The days, months, or years, when the ho-hum of routine or status quo prods us along without fanfare. Or the days when joy seems unreachable, and relief is our only desire. The times we pray for grace and try to coax our mind to settle from the swirl of the moment.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s real, what\u2019s behind the scenes, what outward images or our perception isn\u2019t really showing us, is shadowed by pomp and circumstance. We want to share the profound, the glorious, the remarkable, the achieved. But nothing is really as it appears. Nothing is static. And things can be either awful or great. Extremely awful or extremely great, or both, in any given moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost like having a love\/hate relationship with life. I love the anticipation of potential, of a future where dreams come true, and life is exactly how I want it. But I hate that sometimes the road can feel long, and defy logic, or effort, or even substance. I do my best to balance compassion with wisdom, empathy with obligation, and surrender with exhaustion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This waiting\u2014waiting to get to the next phase whatever it is\u2014is filled with never-ending hope that happiness will always prevail. And that\u2019s whether we\u2019re building a nest or leaving one. We all want to feel good as we transition from one phase of life to another, or even one day to the next. So, while I watched excited, eager, fortunate graduates walk into their new life on the bedrock of pomp and circumstance, I remembered, no matter how small our world seems, we are all part of something bigger \u2014 with or without a ceremonial experience at a profound institution. We are, in our own right, profound, on any given day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To all of us then, caps off! Well done.<\/p>\n

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