Why is Graduation called a Commencement Exercise?

Why is the completion of grade school, high school and college called a commencement exercise?

It may seem like a simple answer. But it is far from that, when you reflect further.

When we graduate, we are beginning to step into our adult life, ready to take on the world.

But for so many "walking across the stage" is what matters more than seeing the life ahead as the stage that we are about to step onto. As Shakespeare put it, "Out, out brief candle. Life is but a poor player who struts and frets his life upon the stage of time ... full of sound and fury ... signifying nothing."

It doesn't have to be this way. Find a mentor, an elder with wisdom. That person will know you want to know the meaning of life and not such the means to making a living. You'll catch the value of balance with someone else being light for your dark side. You'll discover the value of diversity and see people different from you as a gift to be reverenced. And see the next generation as calling us to want to common good with as much value as our own.