Commencment Speech

As an English assignment, we had to write our own commencement speech. Here's mine.

Good afternoon newly graduated and their parents...and everyone else. It’s hard to believe that over 5 years ago, we were being walked around the school by Student Ambassadors to show us the place where our life would revolve around for the years to come. From students struggling to adapt to the new freedoms and new restrictions of high school to pretty much running the school with competitions and academics, we move forward in our lives to new challenges and new opportunities. Maybe I’m not the best person in our class to tell you what the past four years have done to change our lives, or maybe I am. Maybe the past four years have caught up to me and made me think of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.

            For those of you who knew me back when I was a freshman know that I wasn’t the most social, the most friendly, and not the happiest person around. Most of the time I would just go by the days in just a blurr while people thought I was angry at something or someone. I was angry. Angry that I was who I was. But this was back when I was a freshman. In the years to follow I would become a godfather and Uncle to a beautiful baby girl, join the Marines, have some of the closest friendships that I could’ve asked for. With the combination of these things, I have managed to grow into someone I never thought I’d see.  A confident, happy, respectful young man. It was much better than I ever dreamed possible. To come from a dark place and be up here talking to you guys.

            For the first time in my life, I could look at myself in the mirror and say “Man, I look good.” Instead of being the shy guy in a group, I smile and say “Hi. My name is Dakota. How are you?” or when I try and fail to get a girl’s number I say “Hi. My name is Dakota. Sorry if my beauty shocks you, I’ll give you a second to recover.”

            But there are rainy days in everyone’s world. And I’ll admit that my road from there to here has been long and for the most part, bumpy. There have been hills upon hills to climb. There have been doubts that have crossed my mind on whether I could do something. Each time I had to remind myself,” How do I know if I can’t do it if I don’t?” Each challenge in life requires that we dig deep, get dirty, and fight. Fight for happiness, love, anything and everything we need as humans to survive. As long as you fight for those rights and when you fail you get back up, its what makes the difference between success and failure. My recruiter showed my a video a few months back and it was a motivational speech. The speech came from Rocky. He said “Its not how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

            With that, I’d like to congratulate the final class, Class of 2012! Congratulations!