School Speech: Our Time to Start is Now

Some of us are almost done with high school others have four whole years before you. Today I mean to speak about how to apply ourselves to the time we have, be it one or four years, because in the wink of an eye, it will be graduation. A school builds a class of 2009 or 2012, and as that class progresses toward its commencement, students find their niches and fill their roles. Yet many of us never realize until it is too late how important these four years are. Many of us realize only too late that trying your hardest makes all the difference.

I say THE difference because the choice to try as hard as you can and work as hard as you can defines you. I am reminded of the film "Cool Runnings." Three Jamaican runners don’t qualify for the summer Olympics because of a mishap during the trial. So they find a fourth teammate, convince a former Olympian to coach them, persevere through financial woes, personal doubts, and national embarrassment, and become, not Jamaican runners, but renegade bobsledders. These men trained for months in the hills of balmy Jamaica; as many of us from select Caribbean islands find out on their first sub-32 degree day at NMH, a tie-dye t-shirt, jean shorts, and flip flops simply won’t do Not only did these athletes see snow for the first time, but what comes with snow, ice. Those who love this film as I do laugh at the bar room brawl in Calgary, at the endless crashes in the cart, at Sanca’s lucky egg. But we’re not laughing after they crash during the Olympic trials, get up, and carry their sled across the line. We are inspired. Even without winning a gold medal these extraordinary athletes accomplished something legends are made of. The importance for us is these men worked to utter exhaustion to do something no one from Jamaica had ever done. They won international renown because they were not afraid to stand out, take a chance, work their hardest, and make The difference.

You can also make The Difference, but only if you throw yourself completely into everything you do. That difference may come in the classroom, on stage, or on the ice. It may be on varsity or JV, as a freshman or a senior but, no matter where, without your full, your most strenuous effort, you are just another face in the crowd. Life is about standing out, not blending in. Everyone seated here today can make The Difference not only in his or her life, but in the lives of others. But you have to put your heart, your head and your hand, into everything you do, not just in a few choice activities, because that is what makes you a difference-maker, and someone extraordinary. And it has to start now, today, this moment, because as Malachy McCourt once said "If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you’re pissin on the present."

As we all move forward today, a foot planted firmly in the present, let’s push ourselves as never before in class and sport and play, in every aspect of our lives on campus and off. You are never going to be the best at everything; however, you can be your best at everything. And if you try your hardest, if you crash and then carry your sled across the finish line, people take notice, you become an astounding person, you make The Difference in your life and in others’.

I leave you at the starting gate. Work as hard as you can today, not tomorrow, because before you know it, it’s going to be graduation and the end and beginning of it all again. We have just nine months a year to make the most of. Today, we stand at the starting line; our time to start is now.