Sarah+F’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Title of Speech=

Focus on the Little Things

=Text of Speech=

When I ask myself why I don’t write anymore, the answer seems reasonably justifiable. I don’t have time because I have school in the mornings, homework after school, then volleyball practice, and sometimes I do even more homework after practice. Any free-time I have is spent recharging myself for the next session of homework I will do. I recharge by watching TV, listening to music, or playing on my phone. To me, those things aren’t //fun//. They don’t necessarily make me //happy//. They just make me feel relaxed in a day full of stress. Then on weekends I recharge myself from the week and then do more homework. On some weekends I even have volleyball tournaments that last all day. When I think about that, it seems like a perfectly reasonable excuse for not writing. I am focusing on the big important things that have an impact on my life. Now, that’s great, but what about the little things? The things that don’t necessarily have an effect on my GPA, or which college I get into, or that challenge me academically. The things that make me happy. The things that make my day just that much more enjoyable.

I love writing. I have a unique and intimate bond with the characters I create as if they are alive and I am experiencing their story with them. Now I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s the truth. I love writing about my characters. It’s exciting and fun and I get to be so creative in a way that I can’t be any other way. I create the characters. I decide where, when, and how the story evolves and how it effects my characters. I have the freedom to make anything happen. When I wrote my novel for my eighth grade project and I was running out of time, I almost decided to make a huge bolt of lightning strike the ship and kill everyone just so the story would end. I didn’t do that because I was able to finish it, but I could have chosen that ending if I had wanted to. I had control of the plot and the ending and could have decided to kill off everyone.

If writing is so satisfying for me then why have I let myself part from it? Instead of saying I don’t have time, I need to make time. A place I feel that has an infinite amount of time is in Nature. Sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest makes it feel like time is moving so much slower. I have time to think and to write. Some of you must be thinking that it sounds incredibly boring to sit in the middle of nowhere doing absolutely nothing. But during this time of chaos and stress and work, nothing seems pretty appealing to me.

I remember being at camp during the summer one time, and my Touch Group and I – and a Touch Group is basically an assigned group that talks and plays games for two hours every day – went out to walk the labyrinth. Now, from English class you all probably know a labyrinth as a maze. And that’s exactly what it is. The labyrinth at my camp is a big circle maze made of stones. In the middle of the labyrinth is a pile of sticks and rocks. What my group decided to do was to have everyone pick up something from nature, and when they got to the center of the labyrinth they would place that item in the center. Sometimes when I would walk the labyrinth with my friends I would run through it laughing and being funny. This time however, I walked through it slowly, enjoying the pattern of the curves. I placed a shiny stone in the middle of the labyrinth, and then made my way back out. Then, we all sat on boulders or in the dirt and wrote down words to describe how we were feeling and how we were seeing nature. A few of my words were: peaceful, quiet, and fresh. It made me feel wonderful to be sitting there surrounded by nature with the people I love. I didn’t feel bored or tired of being there. I felt peaceful and happy. I think just the fact that I was far away from all the things down the mountain that were bothering me helped me to feel that way.

Sometimes I am at camp for two weeks at a time and won’t look at my phone once. It’s the most amazing feeling to be detached from it. I am not distracted by constantly checking it and am able to live in the moment. The only movies I watch are ones on a tiny screen in the library where I am with everyone else squished onto an extremely old but comfortable couch. My “free-time” is spent playing capture the flag, practicing archery, or going on a hike. No wonder I consider camp my favorite place on earth. I spend an entire week doing all the little things. In the America I hope to live and work in as an adult I hope to see people taking time to focus on the little things in life that make them happy. This doesn’t mean don’t do anything that is stressful or that will make a huge impact on your life. It means make an effort to fit something into your day that has no other purpose than to make you love life just that much more incredible. Thank You.

**Cite Your Sources** 1. My personal insights 2. http://www.uucamp.org/