Celebrating The Harbour School's Class of 2025

At this year’s High School Graduation, Head of School Dr. Jadis Blurton shared a heartfelt message with our seniors, filled with wisdom, warmth, and encouragement for the journey ahead. 

I know that you are all sitting here shaking your heads that these high school years are coming to an end, and I can tell you absolutely that your parents are. Seriously, how can that be? I have known some of you since you were very little, and I’m sorry but there is a part of me that will always see you that way… even though you are now so grown up. I think that is true of all of the parents and teachers here. But another part of me will remember you at your ISMs a few days ago, where you were the young adults you actually are today. The Senior Symposium was an incredible day of collegiality, creativity, authenticity, professionalism and sheer brilliance, exceeding most professional conferences that I have attended. 

But still, you are grown up, your time at The Harbour School is done and you are heading off to another adventure. And what will be true, starting in about an hour, is that you are much more in charge of your own life, so in thinking about this I decided to write you all a letter with some advice. And my homework for parents, which you may think about tonight or tomorrow or over the Summer, is to do the same, coming up with your own tips. It’s an age-old tradition. Remember in Hamlet when Polonius follows his son Laertes around, giving him some great advice like “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”? As usual, Shakespeare caught a moment that we all experience - when our children head off into the world and when our graduates head off to new adventures. 
     
SO: Dear Graduates,
 
My first statement has to be: Welcome to Adulthood! Wow!  

I am going to give you eleven thoughts that may help you on this journey.

 1. Don’t try to be happy. There are a lot of reasons for this, but probably the most practical is that focusing on happiness is like trying to see that blind spot in your eye – every time you move towards it, it slithers away. More importantly, happiness is just one state of being, out of many. If you were to go around like a grinning idiot all the time, you would be kind of shallow and not very interesting.  So expect to be sad, anxious, stressed, worried, mellow, scared, frustrated and calm. You will be all of those things anyway, whether you expect it or not, and if you think of happiness as the only goal then you will often feel that you are failing at life. That isn’t true at all. If you are feeling all of those things, then you are living intensely, which is a much more desirable goal.
 
2. At the same time, don’t try to make life difficult. Fate, or God, or the Universe has that covered. Life is plenty difficult without making it more so.  So when you have a chance to take a pause, take it. When you want to wear silly slippers, wear them. When the sun is shining, go for a walk. Take your time. Go slow. Take detours, wander off the path. Turn around and look behind you. Welcome serendipity. Change your mind when you want to. Accept help.
 
3. Oddly enough, while seeking happiness for yourself is not very helpful, seeking happiness for others really does make you happy. The same parts of your brain light up when you are kind or helpful as when you eat an ice cream cone – and they stay lit up longer. So do focus on being kind. Do something nice, every day, that nobody knows about. Write a nice email, give somebody an unexpected flower or compliment, pass along praise, kiss your mom. Besides adding to the general positive force of the universe, you will actually be helping yourself as well. Be especially mindful of doing this when you yourself are sad, because it is your best medicine. And the amazing thing is that people remember small acts of kindness often for many years!

4. And while we’re (still) on the subject of happiness, remember that framing is everything. Life is full of bumps and uphill slogs. It’s also full of gorgeous music and green leaves. What you experience and remember is what you focus on. If you focus on the negative, your life will feel negative. If you focus on the positive, your life will feel positive. It really is that simple. Even when you know you are practicing mental gymnastics to get there, try to frame events and people in the most positive terms possible. “On the upside…” goes a long way.
 
5. A word about parents: unless they are completely dysfunctional, they love you. That means that they have your back when you mess up and it also means that unlike most other people you will ever meet in your long life, they really do have no greater agenda than your wellbeing. That doesn’t make them right, and it is true that they might have other lesser agendas. You may think they are completely lacking knowledge in many things that you know well, and you are right. You are an adult now. So you don’t have to do what anybody tells you, as long as you obey the law. But their decent intent means that you should listen to them, whether or not you agree with them. Really listen with an open heart and mind, with the understanding that you both know that you will make your own decision in the end.  

6. At least once in your life, walk the Camino de Santiago. (Look it up… or watch the Martin Sheen movie “The Way.”) It’s a pilgrimage from France over the mountains into Spain and across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. There is no better metaphor for life. There are ups and downs, blisters and incomparable views, forests and deserts, beautiful cathedrals and poor villages. Nothing is more clear when you walk the Camino than the simple facts that we are all pilgrims, that the journey is more important than the destination, that searching for meaning and helping others are both necessary components of the Way, and that to get anywhere you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even and especially when that’s hard.
 
7. That being said, be cognizant that everyone’s Camino is their own. You cannot understand other people’s journey, and they may not understand yours. That’s why you can’t try to please them or mimic them or compete with them in how you conduct your life, and why it makes no sense to judge their journey either. You may need to find peace when they seek excitement. They may value speed while you love going slow. You may want to climb mountains while others want to sit in a field. Listen to your own voice and walk your own Camino, not someone else’s. Otherwise, seriously, what’s the point?
  
8. Set goals for yourself. You won’t reach them – nobody does – and you will end up doing many things that were not on your original list. But the goals help you to identify what you want your journey to be, even if you end up doing other things. So make a five-year plan, or a twenty-year plan, or ask yourself what you would like to be proudest of when you are an old man or old lady rocking on the porch: “Of all the things I did in my last 110 years, I’m just so glad I ______”
 
9. Time passes. Your perception of it will change, and sometimes hours or days or years will creep by and others will fly by, and you will remember some things very clearly and a great many things not at all. But whatever your perception or memory, the fact is that it passes. Even if you do live to be 110, that is only 5,720 weeks. Of those, you have already spent about 936. So you have less than 5,000 weeks left to spend. Don’t waste them, don’t let others waste them, and don’t forget that they are valuable.
 
10. Don’t ever limit yourself by what you thought would occur. Do more, act more, allow more, think more, feel more, write more. To stay within the box of your previous imagination is to give up the freedom to grow.
 
11. Learn to forgive yourself. If you planned to write ten tips, and ended up writing eleven, allow yourself a little leeway. You will make mistakes and you will screw up. You won’t be a perfect student or spouse or parent or worker. But the best way to work towards a better tomorrow is not to dwell on what went wrong yesterday.
 

And welcome, welcome, welcome! May your journey be interesting and inspiring and purposeful and free, and may the world rejoice at your presence.

Love,

Dr. Jadis and The Harbour School