A graduation is the celebration of both an ending and a beginning. Schools and colleges have the right idea - making a big deal of moving from one stage to the next, celebrating the accomplishments and saying goodbye.

Many situations become easier to bear or simply more satisfying if we can see them as valuable and necessary stages in our life. We need to learn that things don't have to be everlasting to be excellent; that there comes a time when the job, the house, the friendship that once was perfect has been outgrown. We need to learn that we don't have to denigrate what we are leaving, but integrate what we have learned from it and celebrate what it has meant to us.

Try the mortar board on for size when:

You have reached an important desired milestone. Congratulations! You have done it. Your focus, attention, and action have brought you to your desired accomplishment. Now, before diving in to the next goal, the next milestone, pause in this space to acknowledge, integrate, and celebrate.

Some part of your life feels stale. Maybe it's time to "go to graduate school" - to take that job or situation to a higher and more challenging level. Or maybe it's time to move on.

You're leaving a job or an organization. What meaningful ritual can you create to mark and honor what you've accomplished through it, and the gratitude you have for what was good in the experience.

You dread having to start over. Every end is also the commencement of something new. You've opened up a space in your life. Explore and savor the possibilities that are newly available to you.

You've come to the end, and you wonder what difference it made. Write in a journal about what skills you've honed and what wisdom you have gleaned from the experience. Write about what you believe is your legacy to the person, the organization, or the project you are parting from. What do you know or hope that they gained from your participation?

You're at the crossroads, and you're having a bit of an identity crisis. Whatever your next step, you can take the best of you there. What skills and talents do you want to be sure are fully employed in your next venture?

1. Choose a time of day or an event that feels unsettled to you.
2. Determine the aspect of that moment that you want to lift up. For example, if you choose the evening, you might want to lift up the peaceful close to another day or the things you are grateful for. If you chose an event in step one (like worry or fear or disappointment), Identify what core, life-affirming belief you want to lift up. For example: "this too shall pass" or "Usually the worst that can happen isn't the worst that can happen" or "God is in control"
3. Gather props that illuminate that which you are seeking to lift up. Mister Rogers used the props of a sweater and comfortable shoes to create his "coming home" ritual.
4. Practice the ritual each day or time that is appropriate.
5. Modify the ritual over time so that the meaning and grounding powers remain.

~ Robert Orben

You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.

~ Tom Brokaw

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.

~ Anthony J. D'Angelo

You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.

~ John Updike

Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!

~ Louisa May Alcott

Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.

~ Richard Halliburton

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

~ B.F. Skinner

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

~ Aristotle