Editor’s note: The following comments were made by Dr. Hemant Marathe, president of the WW-P School Board, at both high school graduations on June 21 at the Sun Bank Arena.
Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak at your graduation. Every graduating class is special. However, your class is extra special to me. When I first started as a representative on the school board you all were in kindergarten. Together, we have completed our journey through the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district. When you look back 30-40 years from now at your school years, I hope you will have fond memories of our school district, a place where your foundations were built. I feel honored to have been a part of that foundation building team.
Every time I sit down to write a speech, it is a difficult exercise. When I was growing up, I had to be careful not to say anything that my parents thought was inappropriate. Now as an adult speaking to graduating seniors, I have to be careful not to say anything that my kids think is inappropriate to say to their friends. I know perfectly well what it means to be the sandwich generation.
Today I would like to tell you something that I recently learned from talking to one of my own children. The other day as I got ready to exercise on the treadmill, my teenage daughter came up to me and said, “Dad, we need to talk.”
As a parent your heart skips a few beats when you hear those words from your teenage daughter. With four daughters, my heart has skipped quite a few beats over the years. After my first experience of missing heart beats I went online and bought two heart defibrillators just in case; one each for me and my wife.
After hearing those words from my daughter, I quickly got out of my exercise clothes, put on a jacket, grabbed my defibrillator, and we went out for a walk. After a few pleasantries about how school was going, my daughter said, “Dad, I failed a biology test today.” The way she was talking, it seemed like an “end of the world” affair. For my daughter the problem was not so much disappointing her parents but her older siblings, friends, and teachers. She has two very inconsiderate older sisters who set the bar very high for anyone who shares their last name. Not meeting the expectations from her friends and teachers made my daughter nervous. She was afraid that people would think less of her.
Our exchange got me thinking. Why do so many of us, whether kids or adults, derive our happiness based on expectations of others? Why can’t we pursue activities and results that will make us truly happy, irrespective of how we look to the external world?
It is such a luxury to be able to set your own expectations and be happy with what you achieve.
Have you ever been to the Superbowl stadium the day after the big game?
An empty football stadium can be a little eerie. The place that hours before was so loud that you could not clearly think is suddenly so deathly quiet that you can hear a pin drop. The place that was so alive and colorful now appears dull and monochromatic. It is easy to handle the fans who cheered wildly when you caught the winning touchdown pass. How many of us can handle catching passes in an empty stadium the day after the game? How many of us are happy with ourselves when there are no external validations?
Our true success in life depends on our ability to handle the empty football stadium. It is said that character is “doing the right thing when no one is looking.” Similarly, true success and happiness in life is when you don’t need anyone else to be watching and validating your success.
After our talk, I thanked my daughter profusely because her dilemma allowed me to think about my own life philosophy. On reflection, my advice to her and all of you is this: don’t burden yourself with someone else’s expectations. Work as hard as you can to make the most important person proud — yourself.
The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find.
Find out your true passion in life and pursue it with abandon. Congratulations on your graduation.
Hemant Marathe
Marathe, who is concluding his term as president of the School Board, is running for mayor of West Windsor.
