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Good morning, my fellow members of the McDonogh community. It is a common practice to talk about the great promise of any high school graduating class. After all, the students assembled embody pure potential. It’s easy to say “you are the future,” and it’s true. We, today, are the future. But we often forget that our potential for success is accompanied by potential for failure.

Let’s look at the big picture. We who will graduate today have already joined the intellectual elite of the world. We began by learning how to read. And from there, we learned how to write, and how to think. We have freed ourselves from ignorance. Many in the world have not done, and will never do, that much. The education we have received is a gift whose worth is beyond measure. Already.

But that’s not all. We, McDonogh’s Class of 2001, also represent the financial elite of the world. Compared to the rest of the world, all of us come from wealthy families and have loving and hard-working parents, who have secured for us a standard of living unmatched anywhere. We have everything we need and everything we could want. But remarkably, the privileges we enjoy do not stop there.

Our generation, Generation Y, has come of age in a time of peace and prosperity unequaled in the whole of American history. America and its citizens have more money than ever before. Not only that, but we have had no major war or unrest to threaten our success as a generation. Our parents, the baby boomers, went through the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights struggles of the sixties. They helped our nation find its social conscience. Our grandparents grew up during the Great Depression, carried the immense burden of World War II, and after the struggle was won, they returned home and built America as we know it. I think it’s safe to say that we have had a pretty easy time of it so far.

I can neither believe nor describe how lucky we are. We are the best-educated, most prosperous members of the wealthiest generation ever. We have grown up insulated from war, poverty, and ignorance. Our success seems assured.

But I mentioned a potential for failure. You might wonder, “Well how can we fail if we’re as privileged as you say we are?” And you’re right. All of us in this graduating class have too much going for us to fail in the economic sense. Our circumstances, luckily, are too good for that.

But we can still fail as leaders. Our generation can still fail. Our test is not about money. But it is about personal responsibility. And community.

Our grandparents are called the “greatest generation” for a reason. They passed their tests with flying colors. They survived the Depression and won the war. But what made them great was their spirit of charity, compassion, and unity. They looked out for one another and helped each other.

They did it because to some extent they had to. There was, as one World War II veteran put it, “an evil force loose in the world.” And each American of that “greatest generation” had to put aside his or her own personal desires and ambitions in order to stop it. They had to band together, and sacrifice their own hopes and dreams for the greater good. The good of the world, and the good of their children. They gave up more than we can understand.

The test facing our generation is not whether we can beat Hitler. It’s whether we can hold onto the virtues of community, responsibility, and self-sacrifice in a time of such overwhelming peace and prosperity.

Things are so good right now that we are free to indulge ourselves. Our financial security and the peace of our times give us the option of spending our lives in pursuit of our own interests, and nothing else. But if we do that, we as a generation will have failed.

We must not allow ourselves to feel entitled to the many privileges we enjoy. They are not our rights. We have done nothing to earn them. We are therefore morally obligated, as fortunate beneficiaries, to help the less fortunate. We cannot live our lives just for us, or we will waste our lives and all the gifts we have been given. We must go out of our way in the name of service. As Larry Elder put it, “The question is not whether to help, but how.”

We can help in many ways. Many of us have unique talents that could be invaluable when employed in the service of our fellow man. We need not all work in soup kitchens and shelters, but we all must do something that contributes to the greater good of society. I challenge each one of you, as I have challenged myself, to decide what it is that you can do for someone else, and not just for yourself. A lifetime of learning is an admirable thing, but knowledge accumulated purely for its own sake is of little use to anyone else, and therefore of little intrinsic value. A successful career is a worthy goal, but if the business does not contribute to some greater good, then what good is it? The words of Jacob Marley’s ghost ring true: “Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.”

So to my fellow graduates, and to all those gathered here, if you remember nothing else that I’ve said, just remember two simple words: “Help someone.” Any life spent helping people is a good life. Or to put it another way, “Study in the course of your life to do the greatest possible amount of good.” Thank you.