Finishing my last final and realizing graduation is just one week away, I write this to you.
Making the decision four years ago to come to the University of Utah is the best decision I have ever made. Choosing a college is the first life-changing decision many will make and I feel lucky to have become a Ute. The next decisions we must all make will undoubtedly impact the trajectory of our lives; having kids, choosing a career, getting married… Perhaps not in that order. All of these will mark turning points in our journeys and our futures. So to the proud class of 2010 I’d challenge you to turn your decisions into those that will make in an imprint.
I have been fortunate to be involved during my time at the University of Utah and I can truly say it has changed my college experience dramatically. It has instilled ambition and goals for my future that admittedly I fear I will fall short of. I want to change the world. No really. I have an immense passion for international service; I want to improve the quality of life for people in developing nations and markets. While I may not entirely shape the world with my own life, I, just like you, have been given the tools, the knowledge, and the unmatched opportunity, to make an imprint.
Without a doubt, I assert that education confers not only knowledge and skills, but also a responsibility to use those skills for the betterment of society; to make an imprint. Six out of ten high school graduates enroll in college. Only four of those six will make it to graduation. The fact that you have made it to this day sets you apart from the ones who didn’t get the opportunity and even farther from those who didn’t take it.
We have made it over the hurdles and barriers. And we now have the greater challenge to put ourselves to use. Here is where I would ask you what you feel this piece of paper we receive is worth. Or where I would challenge you to be grateful for what you have earned. What I ask you instead is this: have you underestimated your potential to make an imprint?
I have to tell you, when thinking about this I was torn between making an imprint and leaving an imprint. This is a transition time for us all. Many of us will be moving on to various other things and we will think of the legacy we will leave behind. However, to make an imprint is much more active. It is intentional, conscious. I want to MAKE an imprint, not just LEAVE one when I go.
We will often leave an imprint unintentionally. Some of us will leave in our wake the shrapnel of broken relationships, or a dust that doesn’t quite settle, but if we can MAKE an imprint INTENTIONALLY we can use the rest of our lives to make a difference. It’s risky this way. There can be conflict and danger. We see it as this big moment, when we do something and suddenly we’re on the news and being interviewed by Oprah, with our name up in lights, but in reality, we will see that the most significant moments of our lives will be the times when we had a significant impact on one other human being.
And in that moment, we make an imprint.
So how do we make this come to life? I said I wanted to change the world, obviously a massive undertaking. I can’t tell you I have a set plan or strategy for this, but I know there is value in small steps and leaving fingerprints on the lives we touch. To the architectural planning major who thinks fitting this into your career isn’t applicable or a possibility, or to the mechanical engineer, even the opera major, I challenge you all to find one relationship, one passion, or one event. Start there and MAKE YOUR imprint.
Erwin McMannis said that “everyone makes an imprint, some make it in the wind, which no one will see, some in the water, which cannot be affected. So nothing is there. How can you leverage your time, energy and resources to make an impact?”
Many of you are leaving behind an incredible imprint here at the University of Utah as you end this chapter; and you will go on to touch countless communities. To those that think you haven’t: you have had the tools given to you here. You have had the opportunity to develop the desire here. If one of you reads this and remembers something about making or leaving an imprint and decides, consciously decides, to put forth the effort to MAKE an imprint on one community, one relationship, or one life; that goal of mine, to change the world, will have begun.
You know what they say: “You don’t have to change the world to change a life; if you change a life, you change the world.”
The legacy of a Ute is one that outlasts YOU. Make sure you are making a difference. Just as each of us has our own fingerprint, each of us will make our own imprint somewhere, but each will be shaped by our time here, and the opportunity we were lucky enough to have taken.
Find that one life, that one person, or that close community and make your imprint.
