By BOB CAREY
Contributing Writer

Here at Piedmont College, the student body is pretty much aged 17 to 22.
Here’s something that’s going to happen to you:
You will receive your “sheepskin” and you’re off into private life.
Suddenly, you turn around and you’re 30 years old. Then, before you know it, you’re 40, then 50, and if you didn’t smoke, over-indulge in alcoholic beverages and drive fast cars, you stand a chance of arriving at retirement age.
You look back on your life. and think, “Just what did I do with my life? What did I accomplish? What did I contribute?”
Sure, you raised a couple of kids, but what did you do?
“Is there one thing I can point to as the ‘highlight’ of my life?”
Some of you will be in the right place at the right time and strike it big.
Some of you will set goals and strive for them.
When unforeseen circumstances knock you down, you will have the gumption to get up and keep on trying.
And some of you will just “la-di-da.” It will be an awful feeling to look on your life and feel like you wasted it, or that you didn’t keep on punching when the chips were down.
I once asked a group of teenagers what they thought their most valuable possession was in life.
I got the standard answers: wealth, health, and success.
No.
The answer is: Your self-respect; when you can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say “I’m proud of you. You gave it all you’ve got.”
When you can look in the mirror and say, “I’m proud of me,” that is your most precious possession.
I know that only a small percentage of the student body bothers to read this newspaper, but I want you few to do one thing.
After you finish reading this, go look at yourself in the mirror. See who you are.
Then, get down on your knees, and make a solemn promise to yourself.
“I will strive to live a good, clean, wholesome life. I will put steel in my backbone and gumption in my gut to fight through life’s challenges and I will never, ever, give up.”
Do this, and when you get your first social security check (if there still is one), you will be able to say, “WOW, I did it!”