My secret graduation address, delivered

The following is a draft of Brad Stanhope's annual graduation address, which will apparently remain under wraps for another year as he (inexplicably) hasn't been asked to speak at a graduation since the infamous incident of 1998. To be fair, he later said that he didn't know the microphone was still on.

Mr. Stanhope carries a copy with him at all times, in case a graduation speaker falls ill and he's called on to be a substitute.

The full text follows:

Graduates of 2017, congratulations on accomplishing one of the biggest achievements of your life.

The class of 2017 is special. You enter a world different from any previous graduating class: You are the first class since 1845 to graduate while a former game show host is president. Of course, 1845 was when our president was James K. Polk, the former host of "You Bet Your Log Cabin."

But I digress. You enter a world where responsible citizens must differentiate between real and fake news, where something called a "unicorn frappucino" makes the news, where driverless cars are a reality and where the phrase "throw shade" means something.

In other words, good luck. You'll need it.

Before you enter the world, allow me to share a few bits wisdom I gathered through the years, things I wish I knew when I was your age. Of course, you need to learn your own lessons, but let me give you some tips.

• For starters, remember three things about following rules: No. 1, they exist for the good of the group. And No. 2, sometimes the people who make rules are wrong.
• The secret to wealth has never changed. Simply spend less than you make over a long period of time. Anything else is a shortcut.
• Shortcuts work for some people, but not most of us.
• Enjoy being able to eat how you do now. Junk food is tasty and fun, but 10 years from now, you'll realize that it makes you unhealthy. In 20 years, you'll have to cut back. In 30 years, you'll wish you'd listened to your doctor a decade earlier. Enjoy it now.
• One of life's easiest things is to be appreciative. If you say "thank you" to people and otherwise appreciate them, you will end up ahead.
• You're welcome.
• Keep learning. What seems new and cutting-edge now will seem ancient in the future. And by "future," I mean a year or two from now. Don't be your generation's equivalent of people who never learned how to work with computers or use smartphones.
• Conversely, remember that having the latest knowledge doesn't make you wise. Repeatedly making good choices makes you wise.
• Read that again: Wisdom is the process of repeatedly making wise choices. One way to do that is to ask yourself what the future version of you (maybe 10 years from now) would advise you to do in a given situation. Had I done that, I would have never been involved in the 1998 open-microphone incident. I really did think it was off.
• People who say "the only regrets I have are things I didn't do" are either shameless or were unconscious most of their lives. We sometimes regret both what we did and what we didn't do.
• Don't let regret paralyze you.

Now it's time to go into the world and make a difference by being the best version of you. And it's time for me to make sure the microphone is off before I say anything else.

I just hope I didn't throw shade.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.