Measurements

Good evening President Fleegel, Superintendent Sullivan, Principal Lybert, Assistant Principal Guden, faculty, family, friends, and classmates of 2021. I stand before you tonight with a simple yet daunting task. I have to say something profound to inspire you, and try to make it funny and keep the mood light, all while trying to make this short because I know people don’t pay attention after about 2 minutes. So here we go.

When I began thinking about writing this speech -- I was trying to remember a collection of memories and events going back to our 1st days together in Preschool. I even asked some of you for help on this. Here is a quick list of some of the top picks: 1. At Medford Elementary school we had chess tournaments and sang in Mr. Woller’s choir.

2. I guess Stetsonville had some guy get wacked in the head with a metal water bottle, and the teachers had to staple his head together, pretty weird people.

3. I think we all remember trading Pokemon.

4. In middle school we had Music Fridays in Mrs. Risch’s class.

5. In 8th grade we got Chromebooks 6. In high school we won homecoming two years in a row. We struggled with our homework, or didn’t care about it at all.

7. Most recently, we went through a year and a half of school with COVID. 8. In my brother’s graduation speech he said that as a class, they had set a record for the most days off of school with all the snow days they had. I am pretty sure we blew them out of the water for the amount of school days off.

9. We took skipping class to a whole new level.

Well, enough reminiscing; now onto the inspiration. As I was looking back on what we have done in our lives so far, I realized we do a lot of one thing, measuring. I’m not talking about measuring the length of a line, although most of us have probably done that a lot too, or measuring just how big a group of people can make a cling wrap ball over the course of the school year from buying cookies at lunch, which by the way is (12.5 inches around), I am talking about measuring life. The word measure is defined as, to estimate or assess the extent, quality, value, or effect of (something). The part to pick out of that definition is assessing the value of something. We measure our happiness, our friendships, our future, our time, and our memories. We measure how much money we have in the bank. “How do we measure up to society?” and, “How do we measure up on social media?” Happiness, friendships, money, can be great things. It sounds a little weird but we need to measure our measurements. In other words, we need to ask ourselves, “Which of these are the most important in my life.” It can be different for everyone, but there are two that I believe stick out. One is happiness. Being happy makes the world a better place. Happiness is a very strong force. If you have ever noticed, if one person walks into the room smiling, it seems to affect everyone there. It spreads so easily. While some of you may be sad and emotional, today is a happy day: it is the next step in our lives, think about that. The second measurement is Time. How have we spent our time? Did we spend it helping or hurting? Time is something that you can never get back. As the great Master Oogway once said, and for those of you who don’t know who that is, it’s the turtle from Kung Foo Panda, “Quit, don’t quit? Noodles, don’t noodles.You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that is why it is called the present.”

So as we go into the next step of our lives, remember to measure the right things, because as time goes by, you can’t get it back. Live in the present.

— Abraham Miller