Graduation Essay

Antonio Huete

May 31, 2012

2° Sullivan

Graduation Speech Essay

These past three years have been filled with positive and negative experiences, but that’s life. 

What these past three years have taught me is that there may be negatives in life, but it all balances out later in life.

Within the first couple of months of sixth grade some students began bullying me because of my quiet personality me somewhat of a gullible person I was. Some called me names and tried to embarrass me in class, but in the end were unsuccessful. In my mind still lives a world of imagination and innovation that was almost destroyed by peers. Unfortunately, my ideas were not always appreciated or accepted in school. Luckily, overlooking events such as these was my approach.

Despite these negative draw backs, I reached out to a person who seemed to be very quiet and shy like me. Sammy was in my core class, so I walked up to him to discuss an assignment. He talked quietly and spoke very little. We talked sometimes during lunch that year.

Although I do not talk to Sammy as much as I use to, I still consider him a very dependable friend. When I look back on that day I realize that if I had not had the courage to walk up to him and “break the ice”, I would still be the same quiet person. To me this experience was very significant to my life because it helped me realize I wasn’t the only person who was the “quiet kind”.

These interactions such as the one with Sammy taught me to look at life in a positive way that influences me to this day. This comes to show that one single person can influence you but you must step up and “be the change you want to see in the world” (Gandhi) Also that we must always look at the bright side of life and not dwell on negative experiences. 

My advice for all is that life will have its peaks and valleys, but we are the individuals that influence our own lives significantly. We are free to live our lives the way we desire and create a great future for ourselves. As I saw once in a movie: “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We KEEP MOVING FORWARD, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” -Walt Disney