Valedictory Address

“Valedictory” (1982): 1-3. (UA Case 68, Box 1)

Your Honour, Mr. Premier, Madam Chancellor, Mr. President, Fellow Graduates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

In preparing for this speech I read a paper on public speaking but, you know, it didn’t help me come up with a good beginning at all, so, I’ve decided to open with a quote.

Cesare Pavese, an Italian writer, said, “The only joy in the world is to begin!”

Short, sweet, and very important to keep in mind as we leave our university lives and begin in the real world.

So here we are, graduating from UNB, some of us going to work and others continuing their education, but we are all beginning a new chapter in life. I am sure we all have mixed feelings at this time. Isn’t it ironic that this is a happy and a sad occasion, as well as a beginning and an end.

So many of us came to UNB as strangers to each other, and the sad thing is that someday we may be strangers again. But we met, we talked, we laughed, and we sang and we learned together for a time. And every ounce of hard work was made up for by the time we shared together and the insights and understanding that came our way.

With all those good times in mind, how can I say “the only joy in the world is to begin?”

But, if we look realistically at our lives, and ourselves, we have grown a great deal in our short time at UNB and I know we are ready to begin a new chapter.

Pleasant and enriching though it has been we can’t stay here forever. We wouldn’t continue that growing process that we are working on every-time we begin something new.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we are all working for our future. If we live with the thought that “the only joy in the world is to begin,” then we will never be afraid to begin something new and we will continually be developing our potential and contributing to our future. It is important to be concerned with the future, after all, we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

One of my professors once said, in class, that we didn’t get educated at university. Well, I disagreed. I understood that she meant our education is multiplied enormously when we start work and have to face the world, but it seems to me that we have changed, grown, and increased our knowledge incredibly. I believe we have done something to be proud of, and so, this graduation ceremony is much more than the conferring of a degree. It is a calling to mind of what this degree means—a number of years of hard work—and what it promises in the future—a more fulfilling life.

I would like to tell you a story from the Canadian researcher, Hans Selye. It is a story of an alcoholic and his two sons, one was a teetotaler and the other a drunk. When asked to explain their drinking habits both replied “With a father like that, what do you expect?” The moral of the story is that it matters not what we face, but how we face it.

In the final analysis, it is totally up to us, individually, to decide where we want to go, what we want to do, and how we are going to do it.

Abraham Lincoln said the same thing when he said, “You will only be as happy as you make up your mind to be.”

And so I will leave you with my opening quote, and that is;

“The only joy in the world is to begin.”

It doesn’t matter what you begin, but never stop beginning. Go in fighting and decide you are going to make it. Attach your wagon to a star and you will reach your goal. We’ve come this far and this is just the beginning.

Congratulations Graduates.