I can’t imagine a year that won’t start in the fall or end in the spring. Nor can I imagine what I plan to do with myself a year from now when I will be staring graduation in the face.It makes me wonder how much more I can witness and accomplish in one year that I was unable to in the past three. Looking back to every year that came before now, I see how much has changed and how much I have changed with it.All of you can do the same.A lot has happened this year — to name everything would be immense, borderline incredible — but everything that transpired brought us a little closer together on some level.I think many people forget, when you really get down to it in the end, that we are all just people. Jerry Seinfeld said it best, “If we pick, do we not bleed?!”The illusion of difference that deceives us all should not be accepted.  What we have in common far outweighs that which separates us.We all have to eat, sleep and breathe. We all came from somewhere and have a unique story. We were all kids once; we all have dreams and thoughts of our own. We all like our own hobbies and toys; we believe in our own faiths and we are all stuck here together, no matter what, on this rock a few million miles away from that glowing ball of fire that gives us life.The list goes on and on.And seeing as how we are stuck on this rock, let’s make the best of it while we’re here, shall we?I believe we learn more from our lives and the world around us than school could ever teach us. Our dated world is slowly changing and we are all gaining a new knowledge of how things could be.This year has taught us a lot, grads and fellow returning students and — from the election of a black president to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Vermont — we have seen many things our parents to bethought impossible. Next year and the years after will be no different.I wish you luck in your endeavors. I hope you use what you have learned and what you will learn to your advantage. Remember, we all bleed — with every passing year, the world will change and we will too.It has now become our job to take that world and make it into what we want it to be.Has it become cliché to say, “We are the future?”Sure it has.But you know what? It’s true.