You Can't Cheat the Seasons of Life

(An excerpt from a Graduation speech where the author was the keynote speaker at an international college in Sydney)

Have you ever noticed that when you achieve something great in life, people will point out how: “lucky you are?” You have just juggled work, study, living in a cramped room, sometimes sharing with a total stranger, with very little social life, you have felt lonely in a strange land. You have paid with blood, sweat and tears (and hard cash!) and people think you are lucky! Yes, you are lucky, but you have also earned this. Today, I honour you as the graduating class of 2016.

You see, people will envy your achievements, but nobody will envy of the hard work that got you to that point. They will say things like: I wish I had a Degree, a qualification, a career. People will celebrate this moment with you, and rightly so, but they are unaware of the fact that you had to work 20 hours (or more) in a job that you would not have done in your own country. That you had to study long nights; that you missed your family who are so far away. That the food isn’t the same over here. So many reasons why you could have quit. But here you are, graduating. So people see the surface, the finish line, the success, the accolades. You holding a qualification. They don’t see what led to that, they are not jealous of your suffering, just your achievement.

A professional education gives you the most important lesson: If you want the outcome, fall in love with the process.You have done that well. You have the ability to see that if you sow a good seed that you will have a good harvest. In a sense, you have learnt that you can’t cheat the seasons of life. Back in the rural agrarian age, people knew this lesson much better than us city dwellers. You see, back then, if you didn’t plant in the Spring you would go hungry in the Summer and Autumn. Today, some of us have tried to beat the system, to cheat the seasons.

In terms of education, those people, unfortunately, aren’t with us graduating. They thought they could have a fast-track method. But the joy of winning is sweet to those who sweat. The satisfaction of achievement is well-deserved by those who have laboured against the odds in order to reach this culmination in their academic career.

What I want to remind you is that the seasons don’t end when you graduate. Life is full of ebbs and flows. Life is full of cycles that mean that sometimes you will have a winter in your life, followed by the promise of spring, with the colour and abundance of Summer, and then Autumn when you gather your harvest preparing for another winter. For millennia, this has been the pattern, we can resent it, or accept it but we can’t change it.

Seasons of Life

Autumn: Autumn is there to remind us that seasons aren’t permanent. The foliage that waved in the warm summer breeze is now falling and turning a golden red under our feet. We have a late harvest, and it’s a harvest of preparing for the upcoming winter. Autumn is a time of gathering and saving so you can last through the cold winter ahead.

Winter: For those of you who are going through a winter experience. When the days are short, when it’s cold in your soul, and you feel the loneliness like a frost on your heart. For those of you. I want to remind you that “this too will pass.” Winters are not permanent, they are the time to take stock, to prepare when the next opportunity comes along. For opportunities don’t just land on your lap. Some people believe that opportunity is just being at the right place at the right time. Well, that’s a myth. They are missing one vital ingredient: YOU. (Point to yourself and say: I’m the secret ingredient) You have to be the right person, at the right place at the right time. Then you can capitalise on that opportunity. Being the right person is hard work. It takes self-awareness and introspection. Winters are good for that (Give the person next to you a high five and say: You are the right person)

Spring: This is the season of opportunity. I’m sure you weren’t the only person who thought of coming to Australia and obtaining a qualification. The difference between you and those who thought about it is that you took action. Spring has another meaning: “To move or jump suddenly or rapidly upwards or forwards” – So spring is the time to spring into action! Intentions are nice, but nobody graduated because they had a good intention. They graduated because they took action.

Summer: Summer is the time to start harvesting and when things mature. In a sense, some of you may feel that this graduation is like a summer. You have reaped the fruit of your labours, you have collected on the effort that you put in spring. But summer is more than that. Summer is a celebration, summer in Australia means beaches and BBQs, sun and surf, holidays and long days to squeeze the juice of life. For some of you it may be living la vida loca, or finally being able to socialise without the dread of assignments hanging over your head.

No matter what season you feel you may be in right now, there’s always a way to prepare for it. You can prepare for opportunities just the same way you can prepare for the lack of opportunity. There is an ancient text that contains these hidden words of wisdom:

There’s a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. I know that there’s nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in their work.

Class of 2016 this is your time, this is your season. You are the right person, at the right place, at the right time!

Written by Mario Cortés. BizNet Australia Pty Ltd www.biznetau.com

Follow his blog on: https://leaderslair.wordpress.com