According to most dictionaries, to commence has the same meaning with to begin, to start. I had the urge to look up for the meaning of that word one day during my elementary school years when I got curious why our school’s stage was decorated “commencement exercises” during graduation. Then, being young in mind I had this question : if commencement means the starting point,how can this graduation be a beginning? 

Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to be a part of a commencement exercise. I had the opportunity to attend and finish a skills training course. It was bittersweet, knowing I had toiled hard and spent my weekends attending classes, while I should have opted to stay home or be elsewhere on those times. It feels great, but at the same time sad. It was more or less the same feeling I had during my previous graduations. Parting is such a sweet sorrow, they say. I am going to miss the people and the relationships we built for the weekends that we have been together. 

Going back to commencement. Having attended a number of graduations it is therefore correct to say commencement because it is a portal to another phase of a graduate’s life. Life, is after all, a series of commencements. Some things end to give way to things that are yet to begin. Our lives should be open to a lot of commencements, and making sure that we take something out of the journey. Lessons perhaps, that are going to be useful in everyday decisions.