Students, teachers, families, everyone else who happens to be fortunate- or unfortunate, depending on your ability to stand school events- enough to be here, I would like to take some time to, first of all, thank all of my teachers for their patience with and tolerance of me, and second, warn you about some things that might take you off the path of common sense and good judgment and divert your attention from the big picture. Yes, you heard right, I would like to warn you of a few things, principal of which are anxiety. This is something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced at some point but that I might have taken too far these past few years; it became a major aspect of my character, and even unfortunately was the main thing a lot of people knew about me. Of course, though, it wasn’t always this way.

 When I and all of my graduating classmates this year first enrolled in Portola, I had no idea of all the trials, tribulations, and woes that one meets over the course of the epic odyssey of an average three year stint in middle school; it was just another year, like all before it. Now, we all know how sixth grade in 2020 went and you probably don’t want to be reminded of it, so I won’t bore you with too many details apart from the fact that I enjoyed it and its reliance on high-speed internet, and it seemed like it would indeed be just another happy year. seventh grade, on the other hand, was far more impactful and began to change my perspective, mostly because of my reintroduction into social life. The few friendships I had kept from elementary school soon blossomed into an entire set of new ones, albeit with asterisks attached to them; I still never really took these friends seriously or wanted to spend too much time with them, a reluctance that lingered on from my discomfort with having so many new social responsibilities. 

The first big problems began to rear their heads in eighth grade, this very year. While I was more prepared to go back to school this time, no complete reorientation with life being needed, I had underestimated the seemingly overwhelming deluge of labor I had to contend with. This problem only led to another; the panic I began to feel. Panic over having what was in reality a little bit of work to do transitioned into full-on delusions in which I was convinced that I never had time, and that I might as well devote my entire life to work. Now that this was all I had, I began to think that I was never doing enough and always had to work harder and harder to exceed my own distorted expectations in this one field I was invested in. Soon, I began to feel as though I would be entirely engulfed in a haze of self-doubt and drown in a dark sea of impossible work, but, against all odds, the cloud cleared and I was delivered from their depths by the hook of something that I had never seen as that important before: friendship. The friends I had made in seventh grade were, even through all of our disagreements, instrumental in helping me make my way through the year, because, crucially, they could make me laugh, and I began to open up as much as I could and accept their invitations to things I would have avoided earlier. For every late night spent toiling over homework, there was a night spent watching a movie or playing a game with my friends; for every time I felt as though I was overwhelmed with panic, there was the promise of spending the next day joking about it at school during lunch and under our breath in class. From this experience, I, in the words of Roman leader Marcus Aurelius, “escaped anxiety, [and discarded] it because it was within me [and] my own perceptions, [rather than] outside [and unable to be defeated]”.

So, if I have to leave you all with one thing, it would be that you should know that despite all of the things that you worry about, there’s always something that you will always look back on far more fondly- but only if you make an effort to find it. I wasted so much of the time that could be spent making memories with my friends on needless panic and anxiety, and I of all people should know by now, after my darkest point and the help I had to get, that this anxiety is never something that helps and only makes things worse; after all, why waste time you could be spending making your relationships more meaningful on solving your problems ignoring and complaining about them? Isn’t that counterintuitive? Well, it definitely seems that way, but I never realized. I was in too deep, and to borrow a quote from playwright Arthur Somers Roche, the stream of anxiety I had encouraged cut a channel all of my other thoughts were drained into. Now, I can understand that none of this stuff will stay around in your head, and hey, I don’t even remember any of the troubles I had towards the beginning of the year. None of it was worth anything, and again, the few good memories that I did make are the ones that are truly going to stick with me, and so perhaps you should all focus on making such memories as well, and not encouraging that stream.