Chrystal+G’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=No One Is Reliable Anymore=

Sometime in the past, I was in the library when Mrs. Kapala wa absent, and there was a sub. I had never seen her before so I greeted her with a quick hello and sat down at table to do one of those amazing chapter packets. Unable to focus- big surprise there- I overheard the sub talking to Mrs. Perry about her new experience on the West Coast versus the East Coast. According to her, the two sides weren't too different from one another overall, considering the 3,000 mile distance between the two and the fact that the other side actually has seasons. But one comment that she made has stuck with me. It was something that we all do, whether it is to our friends, our acquaintances, our obscure relatives visiting during the summer, or those random people who won’t leave you alone you meet when trying to relax on a walk. She said that the one thing ever so commonly done here in California is the "We'll have to do this again" goodbye. Or the "We really need to get together sometime". Or even "This weekend for sure." I actually had completely forgotten about this whole occurrence until I started asking people for the best advice they could give me. Some of this advice went along the lines of "Be Yourself", "Don't let what other people think keep you from being you", "Give people the benefit of the doubt", "Don't read beauty magazines, they just make you feel fat" etc, etc, etc. What struck a resonating tone in me is when I finally decided just to Google it, "advice", and I saw two sentences that really hurt. It surprised me actually, how terrifically depressed I felt reading this and acknowledging its truth. "Do what you say you’ll do. No one is reliable anymore."

Of course this is a generalization. People make plans, deals, promises and people keep them. Just think of Horton, not exactly a person, but an incredible elephant: I said what I meant and I meant what I said. If you ever read Horton Hatches the Egg when you were little, maybe you remember goading him on as he sat day and night in that tree. Really, how many of us would sit on an egg for an indefinite time while getting made fun of, shot at, and shipped off to the circus to give some vacation time to a lazy stranger that cared so little about their child that they let an ELEPHANT sit on him/her. Maybe we have some true (*cough*ridiculous) heroes in this class, but as for me, I know that I won't be the first one to volunteer to sit on that egg. But that isn’t the point. The focus is not on the selfless act, but staying true to your word. No excuses, no procrastination, or little white lies. A straightforward stance for your previous straight forward statement.

Staying true to your word has become more than just a “dilemma” in this day and age. Everyone is just so “busy” all the time. True, some people, and I suppose most of us in this overachieving class, do fill up their entire day with school, work, sports, volunteering at the nearest baby alpaca farm, and then spending their nights carving little rocking horses for the sick kids at CMH. And if you seriously are continuing these activities, I say, well, good. But for all of us that are //human//, I warn look at what you say and what you do. If you tell your friends, “Hey, let’s practice some [blank] sport together”, then do it. If you say “I am going to go apply for that scholarship and finish that essay by Tuesday night”, then go for it. I am just tired of the promises people make for themselves or to others that hardly seem to be kept. ANd though numerous problems can be solely propagated from that one mistake, I am truly only concerned with three of them.

Number one. You miss out. Whatever might have happened, you’ll never experience. Whoever might of been there, you’ll never meet. Whatever you might have learned, you’ll never understand. You will just never know, and sure, maybe you won’t regret it. But you will also probably never have a chance for the same brew of people, place and emotion as can be obtained from that one time. You’ll never get the same opportunity to change, hopefully for the better.

This leads straight into the relation you have with the person you made that oath to. Maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a study partner, maybe it was yourself. It really doesn’t matter. The impact is there, in how they look at you, or how you think of yourself. You are the kid with good intentions but always forgetting. The friend with a big mouth and tenuous amount of integrity. The fool with an opinion and no backbone. Whatever the reason for the promise, out of sense of duty or a fleeting desire, it is shameful not to follow through. Of course there will be times when you honestly can’t do everything that you promised. Life sucks like that. But it is fair enough that this is more of an “exception rule” than an “escape route”.

The other, and to me most deleterious, problem is the habit; began, developed, and then enforced with neglectful ignorance. One small example is something that maybe wasn’t so prevalent when we students were 10 years younger, but now consumes 20% of the student population constantly, and then the rest of us sporadically. Procrastination. Decisions broken by us as we snapchat on our phones, follow random links on Youtube, or just translate words into different languages and then back again. A lackadaisical pattern stretching for weeks as we swear we will read chapters 3 through 5 before the quiz on Monday. This too is breaking our silent vow, the pledge to sacrifice our claim of sanctuary for the continual purging of stupidity. Every day by hundreds of students just here in Ventura do so. The little devil of procrastination, beginning as a innocuous tendency, proliferates into a elemental characteristic of who you are.

What about those little white lies you weave to get out of meeting with your gran-gran over the weekend. “Yeah, I have a ton of work to due for this group project due soon, sorry! We do it on Sunday the week after!” Uh huh,ok, sure. A few white lies to grease up your exit and then you can just slip out the door. Please tell me though, how likely will this plan pull through? Most of us would say it wasn’t even a plan, just a little suggestion. And maybe I agree with that too, but I am only half of the deciding party, and the other half is a sweet old lady waiting to talk more about her soaps in a week and a half. Say what you mean and mean what you say, let her know that you really don’t plan to sit talking about Jose for an entire afternoon so she doesn’t bottle up her excitement only to be let down at 3 pm. Of course that isn’t the easiest thing to tell your grandma, but you will be // very // happy in the long run that you made the decision.

The decision, the right decision. For all of you still following me at this point, it is just as important choose the right path or at least try, before committing so that your words have the opportunity to be true. Don’t you assume this is exactly what I mean and run with it. People can, **need** to change their mind after some decisions because, I reiterate, most of us here appear to be human. But choose what you think is the right one for you. Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but double standards do exist in the world. If they didn’t, I would be able to eat as much as my 6 foot 3 cousin on Thanksgiving without a single complaint coming from my body and trust me, very few things could make me happier. But as life doesn’t seem to work so beautifully, you have to choose what you want to be. Because life isn’t so cookie cutter, you have the freedom to decide to go forwards, backwards, left or right, to walk across the lawn to reach the other side of the path quicker, or to just ignore the path completely, sit down, and enjoy whatever it is you want. Just choose the right path. Don’t be indecisive, don’t overanalyze, don’t let others choose for you, but stick with what you say. This not only clears a bit of that overgrown foliage on your path, it invites others like you to join you on your path. People could finally see who you really are because face it, no matter how paranoid you are that its true, mind readers don’t exist. You have to say and act for that necessary impact to arrive

In the world I want to grow up in, experience, and eventually die in, I want the word “flaky” to be forgotten. I want to see the value put on words, and I want their weight to be recognized, appreciated, and then acted upon.

“Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often”. I want this to become a myth, something stored as a memory instead of a daily occurrence. Something to smirk at because of its fraudulency instead of scowling at it because of its truth.