It's like a wish for a birthday, when a speaker wishes a person to always stay in high spirits (cheerful, optimistic).
The normal birthday wish or greeting is "I wish you a happy birthday" or "Happy Birthday, shiko!" In my part of the English-speaking world, we insert whatever day it is, e.g. Easter, Canada Day, New Years Day or sometimes just Thursday or rest of the day. These are often used instead of, or part of, saying good-bye.
Another one is "Enjoy the rest of your day," or "I hope you have a good time with your family tonight/on your trip [or whatever they said they were going to do]."
If conversation had been somewhat heavy about problems, one might say, "Keep your chin up" (meaning "Keep your mood up, remain optimistic.") or "Don't let it get you down," (meaning "Don't become depressed or give up just because things are tough or because it looks hopeless.")
A very common phrase is "I wish you all the best."
There must be more but I can't think of any that say exactly what you are asking for. We wish each other well and we want people to be happy and in a good mood, but we might have a different way of getting the message across than your native language and culture does. Languages and cultures differ that way but underneath humans pretty much all want the same things--they just find different ways of expressing themselves.
Background
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, delivered this speech for the Commencement Address at Cardigan, his son's high school, on June 3, 2022.
Speech Transcript
Rain, somebody said, is like confetti from heaven. So even the heavens are celebrating this morning, joining the rest of us at this wonderful commencement ceremony.
Before we go any further, graduates, you have an important task to perform because behind you are your parents and guardians. Two or three or four years ago, they drove into Cardigan, dropped you off, helped you get settled and then turned around and drove back out the gates. It was an extraordinary sacrifice for them. They drove down the trail of tears back to an emptier and lonelier house. They did that because the decision about your education, they knew, was about you. It was not about them. That sacrifice and others they made have brought you to this point. But this morning is not just about you. It is also about them, so I hope you will stand up and turn around and give them a great round of applause. Please.
Now when somebody asks me how the remarks at Cardigan went, I will be able to say they were interrupted by applause.
Congratulations, class of 2022. You’ve reached an important milestone. An important stage of your life is behind you. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you it is the easiest stage of your life, but it is in the books. While you’ve been at Cardigan, you have all been a part of an important international community as well. And I think that needs to be particularly recognized.
(At this time, Roberts gave brief remarks in other languages.)
Now around the country today at colleges, high schools, middle schools, commencement speakers are standing before impatient graduates. And they are almost always saying the same things. They will say that today is a commencement exercise. ‘It is a beginning, not an end. You should look forward.’ And I think that is true enough, however, I think if you’re going to look forward to figure out where you’re going, it’s good to know where you’ve been and to look back as well. And I think if you look back to your first afternoon here at Cardigan, perhaps you will recall that you were lonely. Perhaps you will recall that you were a little scared, a little anxious. And now look at you. You are surrounded by friends that you call brothers, and you are confident in facing the next step in your education.
It is worth trying to think why that is so. And when you do, I think you may appreciate that it was because of the support of your classmates in the classroom, on the athletic field and in the dorms.
And as far as the confidence goes, I think you will appreciate that it is not because you succeeded at everything you did, but because with the help of your friends, you were not afraid to fail. And if you did fail, you got up and tried again. And if you failed again, you got up and tried again. And if you failed again, it might be time to think about doing something else. But it was not just success, but not being afraid to fail that brought you to this point.
Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.
Now commencement speakers are also expected to give some advice. They give grand advice, and they give some useful tips. The most common grand advice they give is for you to be yourself. It is an odd piece of advice to give people dressed identically, but you should—you should be yourself. But you should understand what that means. Unless you are perfect, it does not mean don’t make any changes. In a certain sense, you should not be yourself. You should try to become something better. People say ‘be yourself’ because they want you to resist the impulse to conform to what others want you to be. But you can’t be yourself if you don’t learn who are, and you can’t learn who you are unless you think about it.
The Greek philosopher Socrates said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ And while ‘just do it’ might be a good motto for some things, it’s not a good motto when it’s trying to figure out how to live your life that is before you. And one important clue to living a good life is to not to try to live the good life. The best way to lose the values that are central to who you are is frankly not to think about them at all.
So that’s the deep advice. Now some tips as you get ready to go to your new school. Other the last couple of years, I have gotten to know many of you young men pretty well, and I know you are good guys. But you are also privileged young men. And if you weren’t privileged when you came here, you are privileged now because you have been here. My advice is: Don’t act like it.
When you get to your new school, walk up and introduce yourself to the person who is raking the leaves, shoveling the snow or emptying the trash. Learn their name and call them by their name during your time at the school.
Another piece of advice: When you pass by people you don’t recognize on the walks, smile, look them in the eye and say hello. The worst thing that will happen is that you will become known as the young man who smiles and says hello, and that is not a bad thing to start with.
You’ve been at a school with just boys. Most of you will be going to a school with girls. I have no advice for you.
I will dictate to you the first note you should write. It will say, ‘Dear [fill in the name of a teacher at Cardigan Mountain School].’ Say: ‘I have started at this new school. We are reading [blank] in English. Football or soccer practice is hard, but I’m enjoying it. Thank you for teaching me.’ Put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and send it. It will mean a great deal to people who—for reasons most of us cannot contemplate—have dedicated themselves to teaching middle school boys. As I said, that will take you exactly 10 minutes a week. By the end of the school year, you will have sent notes to 40 people. Forty people will feel a little more special because you did, and they will think you are very special because of what you did. No one else is going to carry that dividend during your time at school.
Enough advice. I would like to end by reading some important lyrics. I cited the Greek philosopher Socrates earlier. These lyrics are from the great American philosopher, Bob Dylan. They’re almost 50 years old. He wrote them for his son, Jesse, who he was missing while he was on tour. It lists the hopes that a parent might have for a son and for a daughter. They’re also good goals for a son and a daughter. The wishes are beautiful, they’re timeless. They’re universal. They’re good and true, except for one: It is the wish that gives the song its title and its refrain. That wish is a parent’s lament. It’s not a good wish. So these are the lyrics from Forever Young by Bob Dylan:
May God bless you and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
Thank you.
As parents, our first instinct is to protect our children. It's a biological imperative, that visceral and primal urge to keep our children away from things that could hurt them.
But sometimes, that instinct can do more harm than good. There's a fine line between caring and coddling, between sheltering and shielding, and going too far in either direction can hamper our children's growth.
While we obviously shouldn't be a source of suffering for our children (as parents, we should be their safe place), do we really want our kids to not experience any struggle? Of course we don't.
Despite our instinct to protect, deep down we all know that kids need to go through challenges of all kinds in order to learn and grow. That's the way life works. Physical muscles only grow from being broken down and then healing. Is spiritual growth really any different?
If we don't go through difficult, painful experiences, our spiritual muscles don't get worked. If everything's always easy and our mettle never gets tested, we never discover how strong we are or can be.
Watching our kids go through hard times is tough—but it's also necessary.
Andy Grammer's new album (“Naive”—IT'S SO GOOD!!) has a song called “I Wish You Pain,” which basically says, “I love you, so I hope you have to struggle.” It's not a conventional message, but it's real.
In interviews, Andy has said the song was inspired by this quote:
“The more you plough and dig the ground the more fertile it becomes. The more you cut the branches of a tree the higher and stronger it grows. The more you put the gold in the fire the purer it becomes. The more you sharpen the steel by grinding the better it cuts.
Therefore, the more sorrows one sees the more perfect one becomes. That is why, in all times, the Prophets of God have had tribulations and difficulties to withstand. The more often the captain of a ship is in the tempest and difficult sailing the greater his knowledge becomes. Therefore I am happy that you have had great tribulations and difficulties. For this I am very happy — that you have had many sorrows.
Strange it is that I love you and still I am happy that you have sorrows.”
– ‘Abdu'l-BaháIt is a strange sentiment, isn't it? And yet it makes sense. If we want or children to become their best selves, they have to grow through difficulties—and that usually means some kind of pain.
I just love this song. I think Andy captured the message perfectly. And it's catchy, too. Check out the whole album—it's all just so good.
Lyrics:
I hope your doubts come like monsters
And terrorize your dreams
I hope you feel the lonely hopelessness
‘Cause no one else believes
I hope you question whether you ever really had a chance at all
I hope your fear is thick like poison
It gets into your blood
I hope you push until you cannot breathe
And it's still not enough
I hope you put your life out on the line
And everybody watches while you fall
‘Cause I love you more than you could know
And your heart, it grows every time it breaks
I know that it might sound strange
But I wish you pain
Wish you pain
It's hard to say
But I wish you pain
I hope people break their promises
Leave you in the cold
I hope they beat your heart to pieces
Worse than you've ever known
I hope you finally arrive, only to find you're nowhere close
I hope you cry and tears come streaming down your face
I hope this life traps you in more than you thought you could ever take
I hope the help you want never comes and you do it on your own
‘Cause I love you more than you could know
And your heart, it grows every time it breaks
I know that it might sound strange
But I wish you pain
Wish you pain
It's hard to say
But I wish you pain
I love you more than you could even know
Been here before and I just wanna see you grow
Want you to grow
‘Cause everything that matters most
I swear it goes by a different name
I know that it might sound strange
But I wish you pain
I wish you pain
It's hard to say
Wish you pain
I love you more than you could even know
I've been here before and I just wanna see you grow
Want you to grow
Annie writes about life, motherhood, world issues, beautiful places, and anything else that tickles her brain. On good days, she enjoys juggling life with her husband and homeschooling her children. On bad days, she binges on chocolate chips and dreams of traveling the world alone.
At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane's departure and standing near the door, he said to his daughter, "I love you, I wish you enough."
She said, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy." They kissed good-bye and she left.
He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?" "Yes, I have," I replied.
Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.
"Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?" I asked.
"I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral, " he said.
"When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?"
He began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.
"When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them," he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.
"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Good-bye."
He then began to sob and walked away.
[ Original story by Bob Perks, in Chicken Soup For the Grieving Soul ]
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