Taking Initiative

Good afternoon everyone, let’s take a couple steps back to freshman year when we first arrived here. We were all halfway through puberty, into those weird, awkward stages, shaking in our shorts for this new beginning. As we were welcomed by the OHHS staff with open arms none of us were really sure what the high school would be like or how the student environment would affect us. (we’ve all seen the movies). As we got our schedules and toured the school we all had one thing in common. We all decided to take the initiative to expand our knowledge. We all wanted to continue our education and keeping working towards this big goal of graduation.  I’ve found that taking initiative in high school is the only way you can see yourself succeed. You either take down the work like a lumberjack chops down a maple or the work will take you down like an avalanche in the Alps. While most of us told our parents we never had homework I can guarantee we all had at least something to do even if it was membean. Now that schools coming to an end I feel that through my 4 years I really didn’t take the initiative to take high school as serious as I could of. I’m going to be honest, I am a terrible procrastinator. I’ll take all my work out and want to sit down and do homework and 5 minutes later I’m outside playing with my dog or watching Netflix. I knew that high school wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t really make it any easier on myself. Through my first 2 years I barely passed classes, I had to rush to meet deadlines and probably didn’t try as much as I could of. The reason I wanted to share these with you guys is because I think about this all the time. I think about what I could of done different wishing I could go back and do it all again and give it my absolute best shot. But it stops now. As we go on to college and begin our NEWest beginnings remember that we only get one real shot at life and what you do in those situations is what you must live with. The lessons I’ve learned throughout high school is to trust the people who work here. If you have no trust within the staff when their main reason is to help you then why bother? Being a person who doesn’t ask for help often it feels good and reassuring that the teachers are here to help. Another lesson I learned in high school is to step out of your comfort zone and take on new challenges. From being able to juggle AP classes and graduation requirement classes school to trying unified basketball and prom committee, did give me a run for my money. If anyone knows anything about me I’m terrible with plans and completely unorganized, but when I take the time to fully understand a concept I tend to knock it out of the park.  In conclusion to my speech it’s important to understand that we all learn at different speeds and we all will always enjoy learning different things but the more diverse we can become the more creative of ideas we all can create together from all of the different views. And to my classmates and future business leaders and employees of today’s world I wish you the best. 

Photo by saketvora on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA