Liam+E’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech



= = =Title of Speech= Relax =Text of Speech= My fellow AMEXers, let me start by saying how much I love you all. Hasn’t it been a wonderful year of learning and fun an slowly discovering who we are, together? It really has. Now with that out of the way, I’m going to ruthlessly insult the vast majority of you. See, I’ve noticed that there is one quality we all share so much you’d wonder this isn’t the Marxist Experience (bad joke). We are all (And I myself am not excluded from this group) incessant worry-ers, wound up tighter than Amanda Bynes’s... Nevermind. I’ve been walking behind some of you and understood where the meaning of the word “uptight” comes from. And yet somehow we’ve found time to break from walking in a straight line to our classes and crying to our friends when we hear there’s an essay coming 5th period to post things on social networks like //I can’t figure out for the life of me what to do my end of the year speech on and that really freaks me out bc it just serves as another testament to the fact that I really don’t know anything about myself or the world anymore or I guess probably never did GUYS PLEASE HELP.// Yes, it would seem we all have our undergarments in a bundle in one way or another, even after we had our souls torn apart and eaten by the College Board, our not “not for profit” benefactors. I understand getting wound up. Much of the time I was right there with you, about ready to run away from home, foothill, society. Put off by Thoreau’s virginity, I decided to stay. And even with the weight of the College Board (and US History) on my back, I found it very important to find time to kick back, relax, and understand there’s more to life than school. If there wasn’t, I’d really hate my life.

Now lets have some fun and speculate about the future. Oh boy, imaginary scenarios. Sounds like the social life of an AMEXer. You go to school, always finding something to be worried about. Worried about AP tests, worried about this damn speech, worried what you’re gonna be worried about once summer starts, worried about your summer work, worried about the fact that you haven’t done any of your summer work the week before school starts despite being worried about that very same summer work all summer. After a whole year of worrying, you go to college, ready for a fresh start. Only you find college is actually a hell of a lot more difficult then High School, and you worry about this, and that. You get through college somehow, and worry about a career, or finding a life partner. You eventually get married, and you’re free from worry for a week, but then you find time to worry about your marriage and eventually your kids and blah blah blah blah blah. This story eventually ends by you going to the Doctor, getting a strong Xanax prescription, and going through the rest of life a zombie before dying empty and devoid of any of the magic of living. Wasn’t that fun? No, no it wasn’t, and it probably describes more than one person I know. And if this is the life that you’re going to end up living, what’s the point of even doing AMEX in the first place?

I might be exaggerating with the fake scenarios, but worrying about everything doesn’t get anyone anywhere. I don’t know about you, but I took this class to enrich my life - and if not from the information it gave me, then from the brighter college prospects on the horizon. But in truth, my life might have been more enriched, even in the long run, if I had ditched one of the AP classes and allowed myself to breathe just a little, and abandoned the absurd notion that by taking these classes I was opening up a world of opportunities for myself in the future, all the while dipping deeper into the limitless fountain of knowledge. I was probably just dipping a little too deep into the fountain of stress and acne and neck pain and self destructive behavior. So yes, even I felt the cold and lifeless grip of the college board at my throat, sucking out my life force like Amanda Bynes sucks... Nevermind.

But what if all of the time I spent hating myself, my AP teachers, the College Board was spent actually doing productive things? I would probably have been 10 times more productive this year. But instead, I convinced myself, and I’m sure my colleagues all did the same, that even thinking about school counted as schoolwork. And as a result, I was only about 10% as productive as I could have been. By being an uptight douche face, I managed to actually managed to convince myself and the world at large that I was indeed a serious student. What a ridiculous notion! And the same applies for all my contemporaries. It’s almost like we feel that more we work ourselves into a frenzy over the prospect of being tested on our knowledge of some random old ass white guys and a couple old ass minorities, the more we feel accomplished at our achievements. But really, we have no achievements. We’re all just little parasites, no matter how many mission trips you’ve felt useful on, nice things you’ve done, sad College Board graders tried to appease, minorities you’ve looked down upon but had the dignity and honor not to say anything to anybody about the deep, hidden prejudices you harbor. To free ourselves of this illusion of success, this bondage, we all have to sit back, let ourselves go, and vehemently disregard everything that’s keeping you under this iron curtain of stress and pressure and subjugation.

And by vehemently disregard, I don’t mean to flip off the heavens (or the College Board - equally powerful) and run off into the night. We should render them irrelevant by first kicking back and then allowing ourselves to reach our full potential. Sounds counter-intuitive, but really, We could all do so much more by allowing ourselves to relax. I’m serious when I say that unbridled and insane confidence, along with a serious desire to succeed and a focus is all you need to succeed in High School. You’ll notice that worrying yourself to the point of nausea doesn’t neatly fit into any of these categories.

In the America I hope to live in, my fellow citizens will not be slaves to their perceived responsibilities. Instead of being subjugated by these societal obligations, they will realize that they are above anything a shady “not for profit” organization could whip up in their twisted machinations, and eventually rise so high this very same organization will whither and die, writhing in pain in its final moments as it understands just how insignificant it is. So relax, don’t let them get to you and everything will be alright. Thank you!