Today I found something I hadn’t seen for almost 18 years. It was a speech I wrote for my high school graduation. I was positive I wanted to become a surgeon, a pediatric surgeon to be exact. I loved science, and I wanted to make kids’ lives better. Here’s a look back, to what I thought 18 years ago, about an education, about goals, and strangely, what I still believe even today. The words of the speech? There’s nothing groundbreaking in it, but it made me smile to read it. Especially the first line about words on a poster. That’s just a little ironic, eh? I mean, I do love a great poster after all. 
Superintendent, Members of the Board of Education, Parents, Faculty, and Friends:
I wanted to come up here tonight and give a speech so inspiring that it would someday end up in a famous book or on a poster. Well, all I can really say is, WOW, we are finally graduating. Tonight our terrible case of senioritis is cured. Everyone here has a different look upon his or her face at this very moment. Parents, you are in disbelief that the five year old you just dropped off at kindergarten is sitting here tonight in a cap and gown. Faculty, you are thinking about how severely you will miss the Class of 1995. My fellow graduates, your head is filled with much more. You are wondering how many graduation presents you are getting, thinking of your friends, and really just kind of amazed that you are finally here. Putting the confusion aside, we must think of what we are receiving tonight. Once we walk across that stage and receive that piece of paper with our name on it, high school will be a memory gone by. The entire field house will empty our and we will go our separate ways. Now we must start over. This may be the end of high school, but it is truly the beginning of our lives. We must set our goals and reach for them. All through life we have been setting goals and achieving them. As babies, we learned to crawl and walk. As kids, to ride a bike. As teenagers, to drive. Our driver’s license was the one thing that could take us anywhere. Our diploma is like a driver’s license and our education a car. Tonight we are passing the test and now we have the ability to go wherever we wish. We are behind the wheel and we can head out on the highway of life and go in any direction. We may have an occasional flat tire of bad luck, a speed bump of failure, or a pothole to slow us. We must not let that stop us from reaching our destination. We must carefully plot each turn and be determined to make it wherever we desire. Tonight, the highway of life is full of 184 brand new cars, just off the assembly line. Some of us may already know where we are heading, and some of us may still be figuring things out. No matter what goals you desire, now or later, reach for them. The future is in each of our hands, and we, as the Class of ’95 must make the most of it.
After it’s all said and done, I think about college, about how my passion for kids and science collided with my passion for learning and creativity and I guided me into the field I am in today. I was right about one thing, it’s a journey. Filled with speedbumps and failures. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.