Advice for graduates: Find the good in life and in people

Published 1:30 am Friday, May 29, 2026

The kids graduating this spring are coming of age in a strange new world. I truly hope they can find ways to have rich and satisfying lives, given the challenges. The usual advice always applies, go have some good, clean fun and try not to hurt anyone in the process. And I hope they find kindred spirits who enrich their lives rather than encouraging their worst inclinations to petty jealousy, addiction, or the like.

Look for things to do that truly engage you and those around you. And notice those others, especially the odd ducks out there, swimming contentedly unnoticed, but doing truly interesting things. They might be creating music, exploring nature, mastering some sport, birding, writing poetry or plays, or just telling really funny jokes. Most will be indifferent to being liked for their appearance, accomplishments or abilities, more inclined to value things like respect and kindness.

I would also warn the young to brace themselves, since they are likely to be one of a hundred applicants for some choice job. That means that 99 will have to continue working modest jobs, something less than their ideal. I was a part-time, adjunct professor at an outlying college campus. Major universities turned me down. It seems they had more than enough qualified candidates with advanced degrees in anthropology, linguistics and literature for their needs. Fortunately, I thoroughly enjoyed my years of teaching. The classes were generally small and the students mostly eager to learn.

I was eventually hired as an examiner and consultant for the International Baccalaureate Organization, based in Cardiff, Wales. They had need of a rare specialist in a language and literature that was the focus of my doctoral research at the UW. This work has had the added benefit of an occasional stay in their academic center in Wales.

Doors close, other doors open to you. When I didn’t receive an invitation to pack up and leave for a fancy teaching post, we settled in on the island. We spent many years enjoying our remote rural Whidbey Island homestead, available to us because we had mostly time rather than money. We built our own simple rural cottage that served as a pleasant home for over 40 years. We kept a dairy goat and a donkey, chickens and a cat. We grew gardens, a berry patch and a fruit orchard. This lifestyle led to lifelong involvement with a community of like-minded organic farmers, gardeners and rural dreamers in the local group, South Whidbey Tilth.

I don’t know how it happened, but as you know, I spend time these days occasionally spouting off on the opinion pages of this local newspaper. I often like to remind others about the good in life and in people. I also try to honestly describe some of the dangers out there, but also to try to remind people that they have allies, that they are not alone in facing the dragons. And there are far more good and kind people out there, who would stop and help you if you were in need, than those who wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, you who are coming of age today face the worst peril Americans have faced since World War II. This time it has arrived in the form of an army of thousands of heavily armed federal agents, wearing masks and roaming the countryside in unmarked vans, who are grabbing thousands of peaceful, hardworking immigrant neighbors off the streets or from their homes. It is a terror campaign. The arrests and the detention camps clearly violate the Constitution and yet, they continue, and more agents are being recruited and new and larger camps are being built.

ICE going after those who interfere with their work is also part of the plan as they target those that the president calls “the enemy within.” I sometimes think that, if my columns get me arrested, maybe the abuse in one of their deliberately overcrowded, unhealthy detention camps would be a mercy killing at my age. But it is as likely that I am just being sly like the rabbit in the old Uncle Remus story, telling the fox, whatever you do, just don’t throw me in that briar patch. For who knows where the next adventure lies. In my case, maybe in a camp, arranged by Uncle Sam, full of kindred spirits.

I am willing to risk this if it might just help further the cause of seeing that this year’s graduates have a chance at a life as good as so many in my generation have known. It would mean making things like health care, schooling and housing once again affordable, no longer allowing the rich to buy politicians, and once again taxing extreme wealth, while no longer funding wasteful arms manufacture and prison construction. A better future is possible.

Michael Seraphinoff is a Whidbey Island resident, a former professor at Skagit Valley College and academic consultant to the International Baccalaureate Organization.