It’s graduation season and I love catching the clips of famous speakers on the evening news dispensing gems of guidance and inspiration.  I find college commencements to be very energizing.  They also always remind me of a song from the late ‘90s called “Everybody’s Free”.  Urban legend said it was content from a commencement speech that Kurt Vonnegut delivered at MIT, but it was really written by a Chicago Tribune columnist.  The song/speech contains simple gems for a happy life, including “above all, always wear sunscreen.”

What I like about graduations is the sense of hope and infinite possibility.

When working with potential new members, we help our prospective clients understand that this inflection point of high ideals and a glowing future is not limited to fresh-faced twenty-two year olds, but is available to anyone who decides for themselves that “today is the day I make my own future happen.”  There is something about young grads that make it easier for them to make the leap of “the past is not the future” and to take action that we sometimes find hard to ignite in our prospects.  Today can be any single’s “graduation day” to a lifetime of love.

So now, 10+ years after this original graduation message, I’d like to add my own simple guides to finding the “one” and having a lifetime of love

• Make decisions about finding love today, every minute you sacrifice to indecision is an eternity
• Forgive yourself past mistakes, everyone else has
• Remind yourself you have dated “men/women” in the past, not “mankind/womankind”, don’t punish a group for the sins of a few
• Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built a little bit every single day, so stay committed to finding love but don’t get discouraged when it takes longer than you hoped

And above all, always wear sunscreen.