Commencement Speech

Was it worth it?

Highschool, a time of our lives where the older generations tell us two things. The first is that it was the best experience of their lives and they wish they could go back. The second is that it was smarter to go right into the workforce and make a career that way and make some money along the way. These days we don’t seem to have much of a choice. Whether we choose to stay or go brings its own set of problems. There have been goods times such as when your teacher gives a work day to work at your own pace or tell yourself to relax and that you’ve earned a break for the next 80 minutes. But there have been bad times, such as when you forget about that essay due and you put it off so much that when you get up to present you didn’t even finish writing the last sentence. In all honestly it really breaks down into one question. Was high school really worth it?…… Yes, yes it was.

I can’t speak for the rest of my class but for me, what made highschool really interesting is you could be all sorts of things all in one day. Everyday we walk through those doors half asleep and we are all ready to turn around and go right home. Everyday we come to school, there is a new chance to be someone different than we were the day before. Who we become that day, really depends on the day and the type of person you are. You could be a king, a peasant, a saint, a loner, a genius, a con artist, or even a pirate.

You can be a king by waking up in the morning after getting that impossible 8 hours of sleep and it takes you no time at all to get ready. You nail your first period test and every envoys you and begs at your side for the answers and what they should expect. Lunch today is your favorite and for some reason or another, you get to leave school early. However, some days you might be the peasant, forced to ask for pencils and papers and chargers and answers that you just don’t have that day. You can be the saint by sharing your work with your friends to help them get started or maybe even teaching them what they need for that math test. Maybe today isn’t your day. You’re not mad for any reason or maybe you are so you choose to be the loner. It’s not your fault, you just wish to be alone and let the day march on. You can feel like a genius and you just can’t be wrong. You have all of your homework answers and each one is done perfectly. In class the topic comes easy to you and your random guesses are actually right. You can just feel yourself rising to the top of the class. You could be the con artist with you charm and talents, trading away your decent lunch for a full four course meal and maybe getting lucky by hanging on to that pen the teacher let you borrow for the class and keep it all day. Finally you technically can be the pirate whenever you want, just more the likely it would be in a school play.

As for the people skills I’ve learned, well it’s nothing short of what you learn in the real world. You’re gonna have to deal with people you don’t like. Naturally you don’t have to like everyone you meet, but you can’t decide today’s the day you’re gonna hit Dave with a chair cause he won’t stop talking. I feel that all, or quite honestly at least half of us learn to tolerate others, the other half of people are probably the ones who we tolerate.

In the end, all I can say was it could have been worse. Sure the homework and studying and constant battle between homework and Netflix wasn’t easy, but that’s kinda of what we all signed up for when we went to high school. What wasn’t promised to us were the friends that we’ve made, the bonds that we forged, the joked that we’ve told, the laughs that we’re had, the battles that we’ve won, and the truths that we’ve learned. None of that was promised to us and yet here we are and we all have at least one or two good memories here, whether we say it or not. I’m sure high school wasn’t perfect for us, but we all made some tough choices these past couple years and I know I am proud of at least 70% of my choices and if high school has taught me anything, it’s that 70 is all you need to be fine.
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