Saints and Sinners: Part 2 — To the class of 2003
As I walked out the door each morning on my way to school, my mother would say to me, “Remember, someone is watching you.”
She wasn’t referring to Big Brother. She was reminding me that everything I would do and say that day while away from home would be observed by other people.
It’s true of all of us: Somebody is always watching us. And from what they see in us and in other people, they put together a life of their own. If our outlook and behavior are attractive and exhibit those qualities we associate with the rare best moments in life, then others will tend to incorporate those qualities into their own lives.
But it works the other way, too.
I once served as foreman of the grand jury in the county where I lived. What those on the grand jury hear mostly are criminal cases. What I realized, though, is that criminal cases involve people who see nothing but crime and poverty and degradation each day. And, from what they see, they put together a life of their own which turns out, unfortunately, to be very much like what they see around them.
Someone is watching you, whether you know it or not. And the more you are aware of this, and the more you are aware of the influence your attitude and behavior have on others, the more you will (I hope) be concerned about the qualities you are expressing each day.
My mother was right. Somebody is watching us all day long and building their lives on what they see in us and in other people they meet. It is a great responsibility we all bear.
My remarks to you graduating seniors today are based on something Henry David Thoreau once said: “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
We can all change the quality of a day in several ways. Remembering that someone is watching you is one way. Remembering that there is something in this world that is greater than greatness is another.
When Mahatma Gandhi died, people said that he was a great man, but he was more than a great man: He was a good man.
More than a great man. There is something in this world that is greater than greatness — and bigger than bigness. Goodness, for example, is greater than greatness — for one reason because goodness is contagious. Greatness never is. More real good is done in the world by the contagion of one loving heart kindling another than by any other means.
To be good to each other is another way to change the quality of a day. Most of us would rather be around good people — people who are nice to us — than be around great people for very long.
As those of us who are older think back on the people who have meant the most to us in our lives, most admit that they have not been the most successful people as the world measures success.
And certainly they have not been, for the most part, people we would think of as “great people.” Yet they are the ones who have made life most meaningful and satisfying for us. We wouldn’t trade them for all the great people in the world because, when we think of it, we realize that there is something in this world that is greater than greatness.
Something else to remember is this: Little things mean a lot — little things like kindness and honesty and patience and courage. Little things like saying, “I love you.”
I am not setting a monumental task before you today — like going out and changing the world. But I am setting before you a task that is even more important — not to change the world, but “to affect the quality of the day.” It is a task we can all carry out.
And here is the big surprise: If we all do it, we will, in the end, change the world.
(George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.)