During the next few weeks, we are celebrating and honoring thousands of Hawaii's graduates who are moving to a new, exciting and challenging phase in their lives.

First, I ask our graduates to join their schools in thanking some special and dear people: your parents, who gently pushed you and believed in you and whose love sustained you every single day, helping you to become the person who now celebrates this important day.

Next, give thanks for your teachers and your advisers, counselors, coaches and staff members who have guided and supported you. They often expected more from you than you thought possible. Yet there they were, providing that extra boost to help you achieve excellence. Their tool kits contained an ample supply of kindness, generosity and patience. Nurture these traits in your future, remembering with appreciation and gratitude the example they set.

Graduates, you have had the good fortune to receive a high school education. As a beneficiary of this good fortune, together with the wisdom and knowledge you have received, you have an opportunity and the responsibility to share this educational gift with your family, your community and your nation. You can bring a better quality of life to your fellow human beings.

History is yours to mold. Imagine what you can do. Imagine a country that discovers new sources of energy that can serve and preserve our planet. Imagine yourself joining with a multitude of caring people who work on the most salient issues of our day—climate change, poverty, peace, hunger, conservation and human rights—enhancing and expanding a way of life you have learned about and experienced at your high school.

You have the opportunity, in some way, to be a part of this great commission. You give us reason for optimism. As each of you move with grace and joy into the next phases of your lives, you can make our world a better place.

As we all bask in the rainbow that covers you this special day, we urge you to use God's goodness and grace to help you stay focused on success and happiness. Understand that your education will always be unfinished, that your learning will be lifelong.

Continue to live your life so it will be a credit to God, your family, your school and yourself.

Betty White is the principal of Sacred Hearts Academy in Kaimuki.