Danielle+A’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016




 * PRACTICE GRATIFICATION **

I've recently met a woman who is teaching me to practice gratification. It simply means what's in the name. But precipitating this action doesn’t seem to come as simply to the masses, unfortunately. So how do we apply this? We live in a world full of hate, tension and negative aspects which easily distract us from positive ones. We see it between the walls of our homes as well as between the borders of the 196 countries which make up the outer crust of our Earth. However, specifically in the lives of teeangers, our emotionallly imbalanced cortex is especially vulnerable to the mishaps of our surroundings. Seeing your friends change into people you don’t want them to become, or getting relentless pressure from home, doing poorly in school no matter how hard you try, etc. This list of negatives goes on, for all of us I’m sure. Now I am not preparing you for an entirely uplifting speech about how I turned my life around and that people need to be happier because myself included, being a teenager is not all an uplifting experience. However, I believe that in our America today, teenagers specifically have more power than they think they do over how they conduct themselves based on their surroundings, depressed or not. Specifically, practicing gratification is transforming who I am as we speak, and I would like to share that with you today and maybe you can take something from it.

The effects of being surrounded by negativity has unfortunately played a part into who I have let myself become. I’ve dealt with depression in waves for the past three years of highschool, and it is a tiring battle. However the point here is how I have dealt with it. In my personal situation, my depression overlooks many other parts of my life that I could be enjoying. As all of you know, our academic rigour is never lightened as well as social stresses, and unbalanced family life make for a tiring and complicated concoction. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, as I’m most positive someone listening right now can relate to what I’m saying. Now here is where I think you all understand the general idea of where I’m coming from and I can stop whining. Where we go from here, is how do I deal with this? Along with the other thousands of depressed American teens? Nearly 20% of the American

teenage population experiences depression before they become adults, so in our classroom of about 30 kids, at least 6 kids of you including me will go through this or already have. So I think I can speak for many by saying that being a victim to my self-esteem as well as being a victim to negative targets only makes positivity and optimism more of a chore. Which, it shouldn’t be, and I don’t want it to be.

So how can we help ourselves? As I move forward each day and am now working hard to better myself- I am currently learning how to practice gratification. Practicing gratification allows the world to turn in a way which many teens tend to pass by, depressed or not. What I mean by practicing gratification is really in the name. It is so incredibly easy to get hung up on things that make us just tick, and cumulatively these things can distract us from the optimism we deserve. Now pretty much every time I don’t engage in conversation at the dinner table I got yelled at for being rude and selfish, immediate mood change. If someone cuts you off on the way to school, and you miss a light, you swear under your breath or not so under your breath, an immediate mood change. Or I don’t know if this is relatable to anyone else, but when you're rushing to the car in the morning breakfast in hand, and you drop your bagel face down on the ground. Heart break, and mood change. These are all a bit simplistic examples, but I think you get the picture. In magnitude big or small, how we react to these things has the power to affect how we carry out our day, then our week, then our lives. And no one in this room deserves to let pessimism over-run their day, when there are things to be grateful for left right and center- we just have to recognize them.

So next time your parents screams at you for no reason, don’t take it to heart and think you're not good enough. Or if you get a way worse grade on an AP English multiple choice test than you thought you got, don’t be too discouraged and think you wasted a whole year in the AP class. Or if you drop your perfectly toasted bagel face down on the driveway, don’t lose it (although I have to say, that one is pretty hard to forgive, especially if you’re hungry). But instead, practice

gratification, resist the negativity. Instead, think of three things that you are grateful for, and in that moment, those things will guarantee take you from smoke in your ears to a more resolved state. And you don’t need to be pissed off to practice this. Since I learned this, everyday when I’m driving I try to take this time to think of things that I’m grateful for because as we near adulthood, i am realizing just how time flies, and how wasteful it would be to look back on my highschool years and remember the depressed girl who didn’t do anything to help herself. Examples like when driving up the 101 northbound before the Seaward exit, and you see that enormous field of (now dead) mustard flowers, be grateful for that and their beauty. On Monday, I saw a child sticking his head out the car window, not like a kook but just taking in the air like I used to do, and I appreciated this. Or remembering that amidst all our AP test stress, Mr Fitz required the whole class to forget William Jennings Bryan’s motivation for his Cross of Gold speech and instead “hit the quan”. Little things like these here and there have the power to make a difference, so don’t overlook them. Those of you that drive, next time you get in your car and your engine starts to run, be grateful for your car and your independence. Next time you go to the beach, recognize just how lucky you are to live a maximum of like 12 miles from the beach. Next time you sit at the dinner table with your family, whether you get along with them or not, appreciate the fact that they are there. Of magnitude big or small, appreciate the things in your life that make it better, because in our world it is dangerously easy to watch them pass by ungratified.

As the great Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it”. So my fellow Americans, I encourage you to slow down a bit, and practice gratification. Practicing gratification allows you to take in your surroundings, big or small, and find your light at the end of the tunnel. Especially for you other teens who have fallen down a dark path at some point and have had a hard time seeing the light, know that you are not alone, and that there are things in our lives that we can and need to cherish. I want to live in an America where people don’t necessarily hone in less into the negatives of their lives, but embrace more positives along side them. I want to grow old in a country where people appreciate their lives more and their surroundings, and aren’t shy about it. As I continue on the path to heal myself, I encourage you all, damaged or not, to practice gratification in turn for a happier life.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+teens+in+america+are+depressed&rlz=1CASMAE_enUS696US696&oq=how+many+teens+in+america+are+depressed&aqs=chrome..69i57.6927j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
 * Sources: **
 * my mind//my life **
 * google ****quick fact: **