so i recently figured out that i still have access to the email account that i used during high school, and i have been delighted to find the treasures hiding within the archives. here is one particular gem for you--my speech that i gave at graduation. it's long, but will always live on as my moment of glory. enjoy.
Families, friends, faculty, and fellow graduates, the future can be two-faced. Sometimes, it feels as if it is always just at your fingertips, tantalizing you with its nearness, but never a tangible object. Sometimes, it stares you right in the face whether you like it or not. But mostly, the future is everything we expect and not what we expect at all, curiously wrapped into one mysterious package.
Mysterious? Yes. Because unlike Michael J. Fox, we don’t have a silver time-traveling car and a crazy scientist to show us what our lives will be like. Trying to determine the future by looking at the past is like driving a car only by looking in the rearview mirror. Now we stand alone, no longer depending on the past to support us. We can only look forward now.
Our futures are up to us. You are your own boss now. When we leave here tonight, you never have to come back. Mr. Mileham won’t be there to keep you in line. Bob and Christina aren’t going to chase you around with golf carts to make sure you aren’t ditching. Now you can go to lunch whenever you want. Life has an open-campus policy. Now it is up to you. Whether you feel like graduation is an overdue blessing or a premature finale, the time has come. We’re big kids now, and the bell ending recess has just rung.
For some of us, the future is only as far as the party going on this weekend, with the only important details being where it’s at and who’s going to be there. Others still have an eye on what’s a little further down the road: college, careers, military, whatever you want. We’re not in high school anymore guys, and there are bigger things out there than what your best friend’s boyfriend’s cousin’s sister said about your sister’s cousin’s boyfriend’s best friend. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to do something with our lives. We’ve been to school for the past 13 years just waiting for this day, and now it’s here.
John M. Richardson, Jr. said, “When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” So what kind of person are you going to be? The future is promised to no one, whether you were the captain of the football team, or prom queen. We cannot expect life to be a Xerox copy of high school. There may be a “No Child Left Behind” policy in the classrooms we spent the last four years in, but in big bad “reality,” there is no such thing. In the real world, there will be no Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So to hold your hand and make sure you keep up. Our lives will be what we make them, and now we don’t have extra-credit to motivate us.
We’ve all had different experiences that have shaped and molded us into the people we are today, and those experiences will continue. What we do with them, how we handle them, is up to you. I can’t tell you what to do with your futures (and I don’t really want to). Handling my own future is plenty for me. But I can tell you to be smart. We’ve made it this far- now is not the time to resort to idiocy. Know that the choices and habits you make and form now will have a profound effect upon the life ahead of you. You can’t take laziness to the bank, and if you could, it wouldn’t amount to much more than a few crumbs between the couch cushions. Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” The masses don’t lie when they say life is tough- it’s tough because if you want it good, you have to do it yourself. Silver spoons are found only in fantasy. Do not be afraid to work for your happiness- otherwise you may find yourself faced with many disappointments and dead-ends. Your future? It’s up to you. But make it big. Make it the best you can. Make it something you can be proud of. Make it you.
Now, I could get up here and try to inspire you with some clichéd poem about two roads diverging in the woods and how we should all take the one less traveled by, but let’s face it: Robert Frost ain’t got nothin’ on the Class of 2006. So graduates, let’s get out there and introduce ourselves to the world!
5 comments:
you know it's a good speech when you like it more every time you hear/read it, which is what happens with this one.
Doesn't it seem like it was just yesterday when you graduated from HS? And now you're about ready to finish up your college experience and this same speech would be appropriate! Way to go, girl!
you are such a smart cookie..i am proud of you sis!! :)
wow, that speech should be in the papers. I hate when younger cousins are/write smarter than me at 18 than I am at 35. grrrrr.
oh and I wanted to ask if the speech made the crowd laugh alot (as it should have) or if things just sailed over heads as they paid little attention, assuming it would be dull.
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