Youth, Change, and Being Fearless

At risk of alienation: I graduated from high school as a valedictorian. One of 14, in a class of about 500. We all had a perfect 4.0 GPA and took at least 5 AP classes (I recall taking closer to 12, in case you thought I was trying to be humble). This never comes up anymore so I take what I can get.

All 14 of us gave speeches that were limited to a minute long. I don’t want to hear any complaints about the number of speeches because they were objectively the most interesting thing to happen during that graduation ceremony. Exactly one person has asked if I have a video of the speech upon learning this information. The truth is I have a grainy video shot by my mom that I’m slightly cagey about because if I were to rewrite it today I think I could make it at least a little better. But I am feeling inclined to share it now (the transcript, not the video) because frankly, I stand by everything I said.

Annalisa’s 2019 High School Graduation Speech

I’ll start by saying that I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I had to screw things up, and all the people who stopped me. I had a great high school experience, but there’s a reason we celebrate it coming to an end. Change has a way of trimming the dead leaves off our branches. So if you didn’t peak in high school, that’s a good thing. Shoutout to all my late bloomers.

Honestly though, high school wasn’t easy. It’s homework and stress and drama, but at least I had my Vine references to get me through the day. We played the hand we were dealt, and we should be proud. Personally, I have no regrets, despite an outrageous number of mistakes, probably because I have never made a mistake that I couldn’t either learn from or laugh at.

But the most important lesson I learned is to not take myself too seriously. Good thing that as a teenage girl, nobody else took me seriously anyway. So here’s to moving on. Thank you.

I hope that brought some of you back to my side after the most pompous intro I ever hope to write. Not bad right? The ‘late bloomers’ line and ‘teenage girl’ line got some especially positive crowd reactions. Anyway, I’m glad my first instinct is still to try and be funny.

Reflections on Youth

I experienced being a teenager as a transient stage of life. Technically, we all did, but I mean I felt its ephemeral nature while it was happening. I enjoyed imagining myself peaking in my 30s and 40s. This meant I was easygoing and primarily concerned with enjoying time with my friends and having exciting experiences. It’s a miracle I had such good grades (especially if you knew the amount of substances I was experimenting with. Everything in moderation!)

Not to say I was the perfect teenager. Surely, we are all idiots in our youth. I wish I had the foresight to be kinder, more considerate, more thoughtful. I was attempting to grow into the idealized adult version of myself: independent, ambitious, confident. Basically girlboss-lite, and the lack of permanence also led me to be be apathetic about so much of the world.

It’s funny to me to hear teens talk about how much they love god or their boyfriend. Not that I don’t believe them, but at that age I had no concept of long-term commitment or meaningful spiritual connections. And thank god! My general detachment allowed me to build up my sense of self and independence during my young adulthood. Around this time in high school and college I thought it brave of my friends to go out and do things alone (shopping, music shows, exploring the city, etc.) and pushed myself towards that discomfort.

After college, I was confused about what the rest of my life would look like with the transience of my youth coming to an end (not that I’m that old, ahem). I took a gap year, a solo-travel extravaganza, ready to test the boundaries of what I could do on my own. It helped I was greatly encouraged by the older people around me. One in particular said something I needed to hear, in the context of it only being a couple years after the initial COVID lockdowns with much of the world still reeling:

“If you wait for the perfect time, it will never come.”

Youth is so highly prized for something so fickle. Getting older has been a relief; to become more self-assured, more independent, and less fearful of making a fool of myself. Simultaneously, I’m holding on tightly to some aspects of my youth–my willingness to make new friends, to travel, and try new things. The revelation has been it is not about youth vs. whatever comes after, but accepting that change is constant–and still the rate of change and our willingness to embrace it ebbs and flows in our lifetimes.

Change Has a Way of trimming the Dead Leaves off our branches

We all have our own little philosophies. I’ve always been a bit of a hedonist. Life has always felt devastatingly short, how can I possibly do all the things I want to? See all the interesting places? I’m glad to have become more permanent with age, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop chasing novel experiences or pushing myself to try new things. Hell, this blog is one of those things. The spice of life, truly!

Say whatever you want about free will, but baby I got it. I choose to believe it, anyway. I embarked on my solo travel adventure partly as an expression of that free will, and to demonstrate to myself that I can do literally anything I want.

Most people would benefit from exercising their free will a little bit more. But I know this has some huge caveats: money, employment, stability, planning for the future, access. But some of you have never stayed in a cheap, disgusting hostel and it shows. You may not want to do that specifically–I understand.

But what would you do if you weren’t afraid of failure? If you weren’t afraid of change?

I will be the one to tell you: break up with them. Quit your job. Burn it all and start over. Stop wasting your one precious life on things that make you feel worse. YES — there are benefits to discipline, pushing through discomfort — didn’t I say that earlier about building independence? But you don’t need external forces telling you what’s worth suffering for.

How often have I seen people act out of shame, the ultimate tool for repression. How much freer you could be without the judgement of your family or society or whoever. In some ways we outgrow the need for change, or perhaps tire of it when faced with the alternative: Stability. Routine. Acceptance. But the status quo is a slippery place to be.

I get that this is a lot easier said than done–change, trying something new, being fearless. It helps to imagine yourself in 20, 50 years, looking back on the person you are now. Will you see a life well-lived? Someone that holds real values and lives by them? Will you see someone with integrity, compassion, and freedom of expression? It’s so easy to regret what you didn’t even try.

I try my best to embrace change, I’m not perfect. It’s scary, it’s painful, it’s beautiful, it’s inevitable. I’m reminded of Parable of The Sower, one of my favorites. So I’ll leave you with this, the introductory passage: