HSCHS Valedictorians, salutatorian reminisce, give advice

Thank you all for coming today to support the Class of 2016. And to my class, we did it. I’m going to be 100 percent honest with everyone here. I had no idea what to say on this stage today. I wracked my brain for weeks trying to come up with a meaningful and inspirational string of words that would touch all of your hearts and maybe make you laugh a little too. I mean, this is the most important speech I’ll ever give in my life, right? So I kept putting off writing this speech because I wanted to wait for that one special moment of inspiration and clarity where everything would just fall into place. The words would fly right off the page and I would know exactly what to say. But that moment never came. And as the deadline to get this speech written grew nearer, I panicked. A week away from graduation and I was left speechless . . . literally. But then I realized that by waiting for the perfect moment to write this ever-important speech, I was learning the lesson I needed to tell you all today.

There are a lot of stunningly perfect moments in life. But they don’t happen by waiting for the “right” time. I realize that a lot of us spend our lives waiting for the right time to do something big. And I recognize that we, the Class of 2016, are about to enter a new chapter in life where we are responsible for the insanely important choices and events that are going to be right around the corner. But we can’t wait for the perfect moment to make these choices or to have these experiences. In fact, there is no right time for anything in this world. There are a ton of monumental events in our lives: graduating from high school, graduating from college, getting married, starting a career, buying a house, holding your firstborn baby all the way home from the hospital. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your situation is. There is never a “right” time for these moments in life.

So what I would like to tell my class today and all of the community members and family here in the stands is this: Don’t put off the big choices, the big moments in your life. Don’t procrastinate changing your major, proposing to the love of your life, starting a family, moving to a new state, saying goodbye. Don’t wait like I did. Don’t wait for the right moment to make a major choice or to experience a major part of life because the right moment does not exist. And by the time you truly realize that, it will be too late.

So, to my class, I hope that you won’t put off the big moments in life. Graduation is just the beginning. We have just started on the path of life, but this is no board game. Our lives are not dictated by the spin of a wheel.

And finally, since the G in graduation also stands for goodbye, I’d like to conclude my speech by paraphrasing the song “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth. “It(‘ll) be a long (time) without you my friends, but I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.”