An Old Encouraging Speech
Written by Michael Babienco on Sunday, February 18, 2018
This was a speech I gave for my high school graduation in 2010.
Four score and seven years ago, we were not even a blip in our family’s eyes. However, our soon-coming adventures were already logged and known even at that stage. Enter the decade of the 1990’s. As soon as we were born, we had problems. Most of us decided to weep our little hearts out due to being out of our comfort zone. After causing sleep deprivation in our parents for an extended period of time, we finally learned to sleep through the night. As we aged, we ran into more issues: touching the hot stove, knocking over the iron, and/or wetting the bed. Even when we decided to cry again because of our circumstances, someone was always there to lift us up.
We continued to grow and eventually all began attending school in one way shape, or form. Education was not a walk in the park either. Somehow, we survived those early elementary days of attempting to make friends and seemingly endless work. Much to our dismay, we continued to become older and reached middle school and the beginning of real stress. Lectures, essays, and heavy textbooks began to become a normal part of life. For some of us, senioritis had already kicked in. Yet the class of 2010 survived the years of drama, sports, mazes, and other mishaps and graduated from the eighth grade.
High school was another ball game altogether. As each of us began to find out more about ourselves, we were assigned more difficult projects and presentations, ranging from the science portfolio to realizing what our parents went through during our first years via the robo baby. Freshman, sophomore, and junior years went by quickly as we all began to find our own niche in life. Through it all, someone was always there to tell us to keep moving, even when we felt like dying because there was no foreseeable reason to live.
Finally, senior year was upon the class of 2010. Many took the newly offered college courses or other difficult subjects at school while we jumped headfirst into our final year in high school. Still, stress and heartache were among us as we struggled to write those dreaded papers, which never seemed to end, or take semester exams. Yet here we are, after approximately 307,500,000 seconds of education, waiting for yours truly to get on with the speech so that we can go eat cake and be officially done with school for a few months. Class of 2010, through all of the temper tantrums, arguing with friends, and school work, we persevered and have finally made it.
As we transition from one stage of life to another, remember this: Even during the rough times in the past when we couldn’t see any reason to move on from our existing issues, know that God saw this graduation years before we were even thought into existence and knew that we would make it. If you do not see hope in the present, look to the future that is in store for each one of us. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9. When all hope seems lost, remember that around the corner could be the chance of a lifetime to do something amazing. Class of 2010, with God’s help, do your best to follow Winston Churchill’s advice: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.