This Magic Monday, we’re reflecting on graduation season and what the real hero’s journey actually looks like.
These past two years, schools rethought, moved or canceled many graduation ceremonies due to a necessity for health and safety. This season, some normalcy returns to many schools and colleges as they start to hold graduation ceremonies this month.
Whether this season affects your children, a friend or loved one, the culmination of your own learning journey, or, even if graduation isn’t something that affects you personally, acclaimed author and YouTube sensation John Green shares some the honest words of wisdom in his 2013 commencement speech that are well worth the watch (I recommend starting about two and a half minutes in).
A key point of his speech describes what it means to go from “strength to weakness.” Green insists that the “real hero’s journey” is not exactly what you might expect, but it is, in fact, the place where strength is most visible. He explains:
“We may be taught that the people to admire and emulate are actors and musicians and sports heroes and professionally famous people, but when we look at the people who have helped us, the people who actually change actual lives, relatively few of them are publicly celebrated. We don’t think of the money they had but of their generosity. We don’t think of how beautiful or powerful they were, but how willing they were to sacrifice for us — so willing, at times, that we might not even have noticed that they were making sacrifices.”
At Centric, we strive to create unmatched experiences for our clients and employees by putting ourselves in the mindset of others. To learn what would make the most impact for them based on who they are, not necessarily what we think. Even one correctly placed small gesture can make you someone’s superhero for the day. Through the Unmatched Minute stories we receive, we can read about how these acts of generosity affect others, and we can become inspired to take a step in the same direction.
This week, let us remember that it can be the simple actions of the everyday superhero that can often spark the biggest change. Your move, superhero.