Nathan+S’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Morals in America=

When I look around, I see a dying breed. This breed consists of the good people who understand the importance of good morals. My friends, I am afraid that I have seen a growing evil in our society, or perhaps it is more that this evil has always been present, and I have only recently come to be aware of it. I have seen this evil; I have heard this evil; and, quite frankly, this evil shocks me. Even though I have always known that this evil exists, only within the past two years has it really begun to affect me, and the people I know.

You may be asking yourself right now, “What the hell does he mean by evil? What is this ‘evil’ that Nathan speaks of?” I’m just going to start off small, and start with my own personal evil, dark side which, I’ll have you all know right now, is not that evil. I’m not going around burning down buildings and robbing banks. It’s more along the lines of me not doing something that I should’ve done, or I accidentally hurt someone’s feelings. I remember one specific situation where I was sitting with a friend outside of a Starbucks, and there was this one guy who didn’t look all that appealing. He came over to us and asked if we had twenty cents to spare since he had no money for the public bus. I actually had two dimes in my pocket at the time, and yet I lied and told him that I had no money for him. My friend then came to the guy’s rescue and gave him a dollar. The guy said, “Oh thank you sir. Jesus always rewards a kind soul,” or something of that sort, and then he turned to me to give me a glare and then walked away. I turned to my friend and remarked on how he had done a kind action, and my friend told me that he always tries to help the world become a better place whenever he can. When he told me that, I felt like such an asshole. I just felt so evil. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t given that guy twenty cents, I’d give him twenty dollars. Who knows, maybe I would have received Jesus’s reward early. What I took from that situation was that people should try to help one another. Not because they have to, but because they feel morally obligated to do so.

A couple weeks ago, I went to see a friend. We had met in eighth grade and we’ve been friends ever since. When I first met him, I found out that he enjoys the smoking of weed, which I had no problem with, and I still don’t, so don’t think that I think that weed is a great evil, because I don’t think that at all. Anyway, last year, I was talking to one of his friends, and I found out that his scope of drugs that he did was far larger than simply marijuana. I found out that he also liked to indulge in LSD, PCP, acid, and shrooms. He even ordered experimental drugs over the internet that came straight from the lab. I remember that when I heard this, I had a moment of clarity. I just thought, “So that’s why he had seizures all the time.” So, like I said, we met up a couple weeks ago, and from what I understand, he hadn’t made an effort to curb his drug addictions until the previous Friday from when we met, where he supposedly hit “rock bottom”. Apparently what happened was he had taken an unreasonable amount of drugs, and he said that all he remembered was running across the entire city of Thousand Oaks, diving into bushes and hopping over fences because he was under the impression that helicopters and tanks from the United States Army were chasing him. He then got very suicidal, and was eventually arrested by the police and taken to a rehab center where he had to stay in a room for 72 hours while the drugs left his system. He told me that this event was the turning point for him, and he said that he was now working on sobering up and ending his various addictions, which I thought was great. I just remember that when I saw him, he was an empty shell of the person he once was. It was almost as if the drugs had taken most of his personality and threw it all away. I mean, it was great to see him again, and it was good to hear that he was trying to make changes in his life for the better, but I can’t help but wonder why he ever got affiliated with drugs in the first place. He had to have started somewhere, probably back some time in middle school. Maybe if he or the people around him had held a stronger moral system than they had at the time, maybe that one Friday where he was being chased by the military could have been avoided. Who knows?

This friend of mine isn’t the only person I know that has met evil. I have had friends who have been in violent situations. I have had family members who have been cheated on. I have had friends come up to me and tell me that they had been raped. I have received pictures of my friend’s shredded arm after she was done cutting herself due to the plethora of difficult situations that she was in. We can even take this a step further. Let’s remember the Aurora, Colorado shooting that happened nearly two years ago. Then, there was the Sandy Hook shooting a couple months after that. Then, there was the Santa Barbara shooting and stabbing a couple weeks ago. Now, while I don’t fully understand why any of these incidents happen, I do believe that this all could possibly be related to a lack of morals.

What scares me the most is what if all of the evils that I have seen, all of the evils that I have heard, are only just beginning? What if I have yet to experience the greatest evil of all? If this is true, then I don’t want to experience this evil, but I don’t want to hide from it either. I believe that good morals can prevent most evils. Now I’m not a saint, but I do believe that I can make an effort to become a more morally sound person, and I urge you all to take up the same mission. I think that if we all make an effort to be better people, then maybe some of the evils can be prevented, whether it is a national horror, or our own personal strife with life. In the America that I wish to grow old in, I hope to see a greater moral standing among all of those who reside in our country.

Thank you