Paige+B's+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech

Past Present Future The future. A beautifully mysterious topic brought up in families and in homes all over America. No one really knows what it has in store for us or how certain aspects of our lives will occur, and yet everyone still wants to speed up their lives to get to a better tomorrow, in hopes that the faster they get through the present, the sooner they will reach the future. I believe this to be a major issue with our modern day society. Our whole lives we are told that one day we will have everything we could ever want, and yet, as we look to those with polluted perspectives of their future, we are surrounded with false hopes. Too many of us just walk around as victims of life and tell ourselves that tomorrow will bring a new hope, or a brighter future, but we do nothing to go out of our way to make change. It is in this that we find the central problem that we are all too concerned about the future; about what we will own; about what we will look like; about who we will know. When in reality, none of this really matters. It’s all just a fugazi, none of it actually exists. And yet we are all so wrapped up in it every day. I believe that, too many of us forget about what is really important; what really matters; and what is actually tangible, the present. The future only pollutes our thoughts with false images. How can we conjure images of a time that has never happened; of a place that may not exist; or of people that have never been born? It’s not real, not like we are now, not like the every word coming out of my mouth. You see, every passing second is the present, every second past is the past, so it would only make sense that every second that will come to pass is the future. And yet, how do we know that these seconds will even come? What if our futures are cut short? We only know what we know, and right now, all we know is the present; the future is just a figment of our imaginations. With so much emphasis on the future, or on a better tomorrow, we only steal away the opportunity for a beautiful today. With all of these people so caught up on their future, they neglect to live. They forget about the lives that they are living every moment of the day, and they forget about the privilege that they have to be alive. Steve Prefontane (professional runner) once said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” He may have been speaking of a race, but I believe this pertains to life, in the fact that we have all been given a gift to be where we all are, and to not live to the fullest would be a wasted existence. Now you may ask me what kind of future I want to live in, well let me tell you. I think of a future filled with people living the lives they want to live, and the way they want them to be lived. I think of a future torn open by the people that created it; a future where people are too busy living life to worry about what is next. I think of a future with no expectation and one where we are free from the fears and stress of life. That instead of fighting to stay afloat, we merely flow with the current and let life lead us downstream. So my friends, I urge you, to not be victims of life, to not be weighed down by your fears or failures, and to not stress over a future that doesn’t exist, but to go out and live a life worth living.