Good morning class of 2015. I am honored today to stand before you all today. Most of you don’t know who I am. I’m a local writer, entrepreneur, and graduate of this very school. See Mrs. Plimpton right there? She was my Senior English teacher back in 1999. In case you didn’t know, she is the most visionary and discerning person you will ever meet. It’s true. How else could she have called me out each and every time I showed up to first period more baked than Tommy Chong at a Hackey Sack competition?
What a sea of faces…all here for different reasons, and all with your own volcano of unstable emotions, just waiting to erupt at any moment. Hopefully you’re loaded up on enough Xanax and Valium so you won’t embarrass any of us.
Let’s start by thanking all the people who didn’t have to be here today. Brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends….thank you for putting in the extra effort to be here early. Seriously, you could have shown up 4 hours after start time, given your giddy graduate a hug in the parking lot and they would have never known the difference. Do you see how many people are here? You will never get these four hours of your life back. Four hours to scream for two seconds, and then you have to give them graduation money on top of it? Doesn’t seem like a big return on investment does it?
Faculty. Is it really necessary to have you wear the robes, sashes, and cords? Isn’t this just a passive aggressive punishment by the school? Yes, you may enjoy your summer off…but not until you put on this ridiculous costume and watch hundreds of students, for hours upon end, do the same monotonous task over and over and over. Haven’t you already had enough of that preparing them for standardized tests all year long? Also, is there a cord verification process here? Is anyone really checking your records when you request the Summa Cum Laude cord to adorn your robe? Did you really graduate with honors, or did the purple and gold just look good with your skin tone?
Parents. I hope that you came prepared today for the mixture and flood of emotions that you are about to experience. Sadness that your baby isn’t a baby anymore. Pride in their ability to complete what they have started. Fear that they will make the wrong choices. Panic about your checking account over the next 4 years. Excitement about all the sex you’re going to have now that you have an empty nest. C’mon, 18 years is much too long to prolong raunchy kitchen counter sex.
Graduates. High School Graduates of 2015. You feel intelligent today. You feel accomplished today. You feel empowered today! Let me let you in on a secret that no one else is going to tell you. You are not intelligent, no one owes you anything, your chance of success is small, your dreams are just that, and the world is not waiting for you to succeed…the world is watching, and waiting for you to fail.
I apologize if my speech has not met your expectations. Get used to it. Most of you will leave here with a bevy of expectations for your world…Expectations heaped on by your family and your friends. Expectations for your “college experience” and the education you’ll receive both in and out of the classroom. Expectations for your love life, your future employer and everything yet to come A brand new suitcase filled with expectations of everyone around you…except yourself.
You cannot base the success of your life around the expectations of other people. You have to take responsibility for yourself. No one else is going to wipe your ass for you. No one really cares if your ass is wiped in the first place. The cleanliness of your ass is on no one’s mind but your own. You are the only one that has to deal with the uncomfortable itchiness of your dirty ass. Live up to your own expectations and quit expecting everyone else to live up to yours. Your parents will let you down. Your friends will piss you off. Your “college experience” will leave you drunk…oh and sometimes disappointed. Your education will consist of the interpretation of flawed human beings. Your love life will be of a mixture of regret, rejection and walks of shame. Your future employer knows you’re an over-confident dip-shit that needs to learn how to work for someone and with someone before you can work over someone.
Your future world will blow your mind. The bubble that you grew up in is an inaccurate representation of the larger world around you. You have completed your high school education, but your real world education, has only begun.
Go surprise people. Go let people down. Go break down stereotypes. Go shatter someone else’s dream because you got there first. Go give a shit about yourself.
Class of 2015…GO.
About the author: Brandi is a Texas based humorist that self identifies as “Moderately Funny & Majorly Disturbed.” You can catch her purging inappropriateness on her blog or confusing us all with her podcast Candy Cigarettes.
1 Comment
Best speech ever!