# Valedictorian Speech **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 13, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785 "2013-03-13T03:13:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/1 "2013-03-13T03:13:26Z")
I’ve finally decided to actually sit down and figure how to collect all my thoughts I’ve had into a valedictorian speech that actually matters and actually makes a point, rather than the frivolous throw-aways I’ve always seen. I wrote it in just the regular way I talk except for little pasted excerpts. Tell me what you think, Dopers. > [@](#): > > I honestly have had the hardest time thinking of what to say. Given the opportunity to say almost whatever I want to a captive audience of you fine people, and the weight of having to deliver an inspirational and all encompassing message made a speech all the more harder to write. To sum up the challenges we as graduates will face in the coming years in a neat, 5 minute bit package with a bow on top is certainly a challenge, but I’m gonna try my darndest. > > You know, the thing I’ve always hated about these speeches is the copy cat phrases they do every single speech. “You can do it!.” “Go for it!” Nah…as much as we like to think we can do any single thing that we set our minds to, we honestly can. Given my…face…and given my stature, I can never be limbo champion nor could I even be Miss Universe. There’s even a whole business of selling these cliche little phrases to people. “Congrats on the baby!”…how about “Congrats on the baby! Guess thats it for hanging out at the bar. Nice knowing ya!”…”happy valentine’s day, sweetheart, i love you!!!”…isn’t that great? Ain’t love grand? What does that even mean?.. I don’t know… Do you? > > We use these things to mask what we really mean. People should be able to say how they feel without someone putting words in their mouth for them. I think that’s where the problem is, though. > > Aldous Huxley talked about this very problem. He said > > “We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.” > Our brain is wired to worry about our needs first and everyone else follows. And the real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be king of our own tiny island universe, alone at the center of creation. > > I’m not saying to not follow your dreams, actually I’m doing the opposite. What I have realized though is that the hardest thing about achieving dreams is that real life is always layered on top of it and it is really hard to be a movie star or start a new business when you have a wife that needs you and a crying baby with one on the way. To be the truly greatest person you can be involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. Because the capital T Truth of life is that its messy. Its dirty, its real, in what can either be the most uplifting or terrifying fact you can ever realize is that NO ONE has life figured out. No one has ANY idea what they’re doing and they’re just trying to piece it together day by day and hope no one notices. When you get caught up in your life, you take it day by day and never show other people the appreciation they deserve, nor do you reach out and truly connect with the ones you love. Before you know it, you live on autopilot for too long and you wake up at age 40 wondering what happened to your life. > > This is not a dream. This is real life and whether you believe in heaven above or not, we can all agree that you only have one shot in this existence and you have about 60 years left to make something of it. I suggest you start figuring it out right now what you’re going to do in those 60 years or else you will be left behind because life and what’s at the end of the tunnel waits for no man. From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry if you thought I was going to deliver an absolute knee-slapper of a valedictorian speech, but, in my eyes, this is what you need to know NOW and not later. > > Mr. Principal, Mrs. Assistant Principal, and all the students and staff at San Dimas High School, thank you for listening and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the say eating at Rick’s or wherever you’re going to go. I wish you more than luck! Thanks to those who read it, any feedback or discussion is welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/2 "2013-03-13T05:48:29Z")
If you really attend San Dimas High School, you must end your speech with “SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULZ!” In fact that could be your entire speech. Now for what you said. CHEER UP! Man that was a downer. Of course, I can’t remember a single sentence from any of the commencement speakers I’ve had to listen to over my many years, so maybe you’re making too big a deal over this. ---
**Author:** ![Silophant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Silophant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silophant)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/3 "2013-03-13T06:09:03Z")
First, is this speech going to be at the beginning or end of the ceremony? (I know salutatorian is supposed to be at the beginning and valedictorian at the end, but my high school did/does it backwards, so YMMV). That should make a difference in tone. I think **Zebra** has it right, though. Cheer up. It’s great that you’re making a point, and I like the point you’re making, but I think it’s possible to make it in an upbeat way, rather than the fatalistic tone you’re using. When I gave my graduation speech, I could have been really cynical about it, and under the circumstances (two people in our close-knit, 40-person class not being allowed to walk on a technicality, and a GPA calculation snafu leading to an… unexpected valedictorian/salutatorian lineup), no one would have been surprised, but I didn’t. I made my points, but I kept it upbeat, and I’m glad I did. In the end, a graduation ceremony is supposed to be a happy event, and you should try to contribute to that. [ETA: That first paragraph is pretty cliché. If that’s what you’re going for, that’s just fine, but be aware of it.] ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/4 "2013-03-13T08:52:46Z")
Also, a person is a valedictorian, but a speech is valedictory. -drewtwo99, former co-valedictorian (there were 9 of us I think) ---
**Author:** ![jonesj2205](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jonesj2205](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonesj2205)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/5 "2013-03-13T09:25:08Z")
You pretty much have one positive line in the entire speech. Are you concerned that if you don’t point it out on graduation day your fellow students will not be aware that there are potential pitfalls ahead? Graduation is a celebration - of the completion of one life phase and of the opportunities in the next, so yeah cheer up 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/6 "2013-03-13T11:29:11Z")
I like the general idea (of course, I’m also in the midst of an unmedicated depression, with 40 looming just around the bend and I have been in much this mindset for a while now), but I also agree that a liiiiiiiiitle more hope and cheer would be appropriate for the occasion. How about putting in some ideas for HOW they can " show other people the appreciation they deserve," and “reach out and truly connect with the ones you love,”? Some recognition of how they’ve done that in these last four years? As it stands, you’ve pointed out that the light at the end of the tunnel is, in fact, an unstoppable train. Great. And…? ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valedictorian-speech/652785/7 "2013-03-13T22:03:13Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > If you really attend San Dimas High School, you must end your speech with “SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULZ!” In fact that could be your entire speech. I was thinking the same thing.