So, I thought… what can I be? What can I do with these moments in time? I considered three approaches to this speech:

I could teach the history and traditions of Brentwood. But it’s a long history, with many traditions… and you have miles to go before you sleep… or ferries to catch, exams to prepare for… and a lot more talk to sit through in an hour or so’s time. Ok, Bad plan.

I could go on at length about you how lucky you are to be here at this school, in this country in this environment, to be in this truly privileged place, how grateful you should be… I could weave a whole speech on that subject… but that’s hugely redundant. Anyone on this planet who eats three meals a day, anyone who is not one of the two hundred and sixty million children under seventeen UNICEF estimates are in one form of slavery or another worldwide, anyone who was not born HIV positive in a village with a poisoned water source, anyone who is not the subject of daily and nightly attacks from hostile forces, anyone on this planet not subject to those evils should be well aware that they have already won life’s lottery.
So enough about that.

I could give advice… advice on how to be in life.… yeah right!… I mean advice falls into the same category as a politician’s promise: it’s easily given, impossible to live up to, and anyone with any sense stopped listening to it years ago.

So what could I do with these moments. Finally, I decided that what I could do with ease, without blushing and with integrity was to share. To share what has worked for me and what might be of use to you. So, a form of advice, then… one meant for you and for me.

I had spent the decade and a half before I came to Brentwood in professional live thatre as an actor, a director and an Artistic Director/CEO. Several times a year, I had been flown to Toronto, sometimes to New York, to London, and to most Canadian Cities. I worked with some of the most inspired theatre artists in the country, from Vancouver Playhouse to Stratford Festival. I had spent years in the professional company of some of the most beautiful and talented women on the continent. On September 10th 1988, at 8:15am, I found myself imprisoned in a 22ft by 22ft box with eighteen Grade 9's.
I was not a happy camper. For months I was not a happy camper.

Then, slowly at first, I reminded myself of a lifelong belief. Something that had sustained me through some difficult times. Something that I started life believing and still believe. I believe that I create my day. I decide how I will do each day. Whatever others do to me, no matter how others react to me, the choice of whether to greet the world with high or low morale, rests totally within me. I choose to face this world on a daily basis with hope and openness, with the presence of possiblities, with a smile and a greeting for my friends, for my colleagues, my students and, where I sense it will not intrude, with a smile for all strangers I pass. It works for me.
And so I came to realize that the prison was inside my head. The box was my perception. The Grade 9's were all worlds of wonder. Complex worlds of possiblities for fun and struggle and striving and achievement.
From a garret where she was in hiding, and from which she was taken to die, Anne Frank chose, each day, to see people as basically good. In Auschwitz itself, Viktor Frankl wrote, “Even in the degradation and abject misery of a concentration camp, I was able to exercise the most important freedom of all — the freedom to determine one's own attitude and spiritual well-being. No sadistic Nazi SS guard was able to take that away from me or control the inner-life of my soul. Around November 1988, I said to myself an equivalent of those four vitally important words… “Suck it up Buttercup”.

Not long after, I read an assignment, a story written by a Grade 9 girl, Agatha French, and my tide completely turned. I thought, “My God, I can’t write as well as this.” Not only are these kids not my prison guards, as I guide them, many of them will be my guides. And, indeed, many of them, many of you, have been. Not long after reading Aggie’s work and that of several others, I got back into writing myself. And that has been a world of wonders, too. Yet another career I love.
Lucky man.

I have a picture in my study at home… one I think about constantly. It’s a quirky cartoon by artist Brian Andreas.
Under the picture are these words.
“You have to make it again every day,” the angel said to me, “or it all goes to hell.”

(Bring out picture of Baby Keith)

This is a picture of a six-month-old boy. When I finish here, I’ll put it over there. I want you to look at it on your way out of the garden… all of you, not just the students.
Notice that this baby’s eyes are alive, curious, ready to greet the day and the world. His physical attitude is one of setting out on a fine adventure: ready for fun, ready for whatever crosses his path. He has certainly made a decision about how to ‘do his day’. He will follow his passions.
That baby boy is 61 years old now, and I assure you that he still greets each day the same way. You will go through, some will already have gone through, tough times. My experience has been that it’s all a little bit better if you choose to face each day with a sense of adventure, determination to make this day a good one, no matter what, and with a smile and a greeting for all.

For me it seems possible that, as you get older, your true wealth is in inverse proportion to the number of RRSP’s you have invested. After all, if you spend your whole life making sure you’re well off when you’re seventy-five, you haven’t been reading the actuarial tables closely enough. For me, a truly impoverished old age is one with no memories—no mental highlight reel showing friends and foreign places, mountain tops and ferris wheels, no pictures of that special night with a group of friends, all quite possibly tipsy on shots of the good stuff, arms sloppily around each other, all knowing that if you did live in a war zone, if it came to it, you would die for any one of them. With the exception for a week or so of the ‘shots of the good stuff’ It’s time Grads, to start not saving for your old age but living for it. It’s time to spend each day creating your life’s highlight reel, the one you will play endlessly in your twilight years. It’s time for you to follow your passions… no, not your parent’s passions… yours, since you will live your life, not them. It’s time to accept all invitations to dance, it’s time hug those you love.
My simple belief then Grads, a belief that work for me, and has sustained others, can be summed up by a slight misquote. “Go ahead, make your day’.

People tell me I don’t look like I’m 61. My English and Acting classes tell me I don’t act like I’m 61. Actually their estimate is that I act like I’m about 12. I assure you that they’re wrong. They are way, way off.
(Lift up photo.)
Every day, in every important way, I act like I’m six months old.
It works for me. Maybe you should try it. I’ve seen worse philosophies
(Raise the Picture to the Grads)

Live a great highlight reel, Guys and Gals.