Today I was one of many proud parents watching their beloved offspring don gown and mortarboard and be presented with their degree.  My daughter had quite a lot to overcome to reach this milestone.  She lost her mum a matter of months after starting, then broke up with her boyfriend of seven years shortly thereafter, after her second year she felt she needed to change her course and as a dyslexic she had to do a little bit more to present her written work.  She managed all this and today got the piece of paper that has cost her tens of thousands to say that she has achieved something important.

We tend to hand out bits of paper to acknowledge these changes in our status, driving licences, marriage certificate degrees etc.  A small thing really to mark a landmark in out lives.  We change day-by-day, but in such tiny increments that we don’t really notice, so it is important periodically to take stock and recognise that change has happened.  To tell the world we are ready for the next level of challenge.

It is so easy to be cynical about the value of this kind of ceremony but they do have social and emotional value.  When I qualified, I just got an envelope through the post, but I knew that piece of paper was a key turning point, and whilst I wasn’t sure I wished to follow that profession, I was very clear I had joined a relatively elite group, and had won the right to play in that league. 

Change happens whether we like it or not, some changes we work for, and others happen despite our best efforts, but in order to master Change we need to acknowledge it and our small victories.  So I send out my congratulations to all of this year’s graduating students