GRADUATION SPEAKER: LEO SCHRADER

Before I start, I would like to thank those who supported me throughout all of the years. To my family, to the educators here at Bayless, the coaches, administrators, and vending machines, thank you for serving the Class of 2023 through an incredibly socially and economically unstable four years. I would also like to apologize for not having Subway Surfers gameplay under the podium to hold everyone’s attention.

But regardless — to begin, I would like to ask you all a few questions: what do you remember? Will you remember your graduation? Will you remember me, or what about this speech? When you leave this place, how will that grade you regretfully received in one of your old classes affect you beyond this moment? At the end of the day, after I have stepped down from this podium, will you ever think about these words again?

I stand before you under the title of class rank one. When we all entered freshman year, even the thought of saying those words would motivate me to exceed my own expectations. But, it’s easy to think about the future — to idealize a life of your own based on what you imagine will leave you eternally happy. Year after year, you may grow closer to those dreams, you may fall away from them, you may develop new aspirations after realizing that, no, you can’t be Batman as a career. Ideas and values shift and mold newer wants and desires. And so, you chase them. You run a marathon to become closer to this ideal. Your feet hurt, your lungs tighten, your face turns red-hot, and you do it all because, well, you know in your heart that this dream will be your glass of water, your final break, your gold medal. But somewhere along the way, it becomes clear that these goals and aspirations aren’t just some isolated race. Sometimes, the ground becomes sticky, your shoes crumble, the audience kicks mud and throws rocks at you. Sometimes, you break your leg, or maybe those who supported you in your race aren’t on the sidelines anymore.

The moment you cross the finish line, do you even know how good it’s supposed to feel; how long this self-fulfillment will truly last? How many rocks can you withstand and still appreciate your achievement in its idealized entirety? After four years, 48 months, 1460 days of stepping one leg after the other to reach this goal of becoming “class rank one,” what do I truly have to feel for it? Twenty years from now, many of our aspirations may simply become an offhand comment at the dinner table; a single sentence that brings a fraction of the joy a younger version of you expected. So then, what is there to glean from all of this? If there is always this gut feeling of ‘I’m happy, but I could be happier;’ ‘I appreciate what I have done, but I could feel more joy;’ ‘if I had just worked harder, it would all feel more worth it,’ then what are we really fighting for? ‘I did what I set out to do, so why do I still feel this numbness?’ The most important thing to understand, and the only natural conclusion to this, is that maybe some everlasting joy isn’t really the end goal. When all is said and done, contentment in your actions will long outlive any dopamine your brain can produce. Your life is not bound by labels, nor by expectation. You simply are. It’s only when you rid yourself of these labels you’ve been given since birth that you can truly be. When you begin to treat what’s around you — your present — with mindfulness, care, love, you can find it in your heart to love yourself as well. The marathon you ran, the bruisings and difficulty you endured, doesn’t go to waste. Take a breath. Seriously. Acknowledge your awareness of this moment. Acknowledge the ground at your feet, the sound hitting your ears, the breath slowly entering and escaping your lungs. You want freedom? Use the rocks thrown at you to shield others. Push those with weak legs to go beyond themselves. At the finish line, you will realize that the gold medal was simply a by-product of seeking what truly mattered. It’s easy to think of the future — to plan for certainty in the uncertainty. Although you may not remember me, take these words interpolated from Marcus Aurelius to heart: “even if you live three hundred years, or even thirty thousand, remember that no person loses any other life than the one they live now. In turn, the person who lives the longest and the person who leaves the soonest lose just the same, as it is only the present, the now, of which you can truly be deprived.”

We have all trudged through the awkwardness of a freshman, the uncertainty of a sophomore, the difficulty of junior year, and the finality of senior year. And here we are, at the end of the road looking into a near-but-distant future. As you continue forward, understand where your values lie. Sit with yourself, and acknowledge what you feel, what you need, what you desire. And then, when you love your life not out of idealized happiness but instead out of tranquillity and contentment, act. Continue your march of growth and continue to learn and be mindful of the world around you. Live in your presence, and fight for your life, because you deserve it.

With this in mind, understand that you will fall asleep tonight, and you will wake up tomorrow. Our graduation is not so much a final reward for four years of achievement and strain, but rather an open gateway into the next stages of our personal and social growth. The world continues to spin, the sun rises and sets, the moon repeats its phases; so, whether it is a year from now, or a week, or a day, or even tonight, it is always the perfect time to do something great. So please, try not to keep the future you, waiting. And in case I don’t see you: good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Congratulations everyone.