[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
hello thank you guys for coming out and
sadly i’m going to start this off on a
bad note this is not a tribute to the
miley cyrus song the climb this is
something much different so in the
beginning of my senior year I was
assigned a project and this project was
open-ended to pick a topic that I could
relate to my senior service project and
something that I felt passionate about
so automatically my mind usually goes to
something that I could relate to my
college major or is something that I
could use down the road in an interview
or something that was just good for me
to know but immediately my mind went to
the meaning of life I mean how could
this even relate to my CVSL and it
wasn’t till a few nights ago when I was
throwing this project together like the
procrastinator I am that I realized my
connection to my CB SL so my CB SL I
work with seeds of learning and I take
groups of high schoolers from Cardinal
Newman to build schools in Nicaragua and
all of you guys are cardinal newman
students we know how important our
senior service project is it’s something
we start on in our freshman year we talk
about service opportunities and ways to
connect with the community and i started
my project my sophomore year when i went
to Nicaragua and let me tell you it
changed my life but there was a
realization i had in the beginning of my
senior year at cardinal newman that my
project was not what I thought it was it
was something fabricated so that brings
me to my next point volunteered tourism
I realized that my project was founded
on volunteer tourism and this was a
shock to me I came back from my first
year of Nicaragua and I was a changed
person I’d saved the world I felt so
good about myself and my parents loved
to talk about me at dinner parties and I
applied for scholarships on the sole
basis that I built a school in Nicaragua
but I realized it was so much more than
that that my project was founded on
voluntary tourism and that is the
leave that volunteering volunteerism and
tourism are combined in international
travel so there’s one critique a
volunteer terrorism that I really took
to heart and that is the fact that the
international travelers that usually go
to developing countries get a lot more
than they give and at first I was kind
of appalled I was like what are you guys
talking about I built a school this
group of my students built a school I
mean how could we give any more but I
realized i gave not as much as i got i
got so much out of that i got
recognition i got a pat on the back I
felt good about myself so I really
struggled finding meaning in my project
and that made me think about how to find
meaning in my project and I found
meaning in the connections that I got in
Nicaragua the people I got to talk to
the culture barriers we broke down and
this got me thinking about the people I
met I’m talking about mothers who wake
up at dawn to make 150 tortillas in
their one-bedroom home only to hike five
miles to the nearest market and sell
half of them because there’s 12 other
mothers selling the exact same tortillas
they hiked back uphill to their home
their lungs aching because of the deep
disease they’ve gotten from the smoke
that fills their home from their wood
burning stove and then I thought about
myself somebody who is trying to decide
if they have enough time to run to the
mall before my water polo practice to
buy shoes because my outfit for friday
night did not have a pair of shoes that
matched and I’m supposed to believe that
there’s some meaning of life that is a
blanket term that puts me in the people
of Nicaragua on the same place and I
just didn’t buy it I mean we’re a
culture obsessed with meaning every book
every movie every song we listened to
boils down to some kind of meaning I
mean there’s a message in everything and
most of them boil down to this feeling
of happiness and it implies that we get
our meaning from happiness but every
book and every movie has a different way
to find happiness so once again how was
I supposed to believe that there was
this one universal term that was
and I found just that there might not be
one so i found that we are not going to
find our meaning and what we are doing
today i’d like to say that I’m very
blessed to be part of this Cardinal
Newman a community we are all driven
motivated people shooting for the stars
the kids I’m around are ambitious and
they’re doing great things but I say
this wholeheartedly for the wrong reason
we are doing things for the wrong
reasons we are applying to the Ivy
League colleges because our parents had
us in that sweatshirt from the time we
were three we are running cross-country
not because we love it because our
siblings ran cross country so we have to
write we’re going out for the Speech and
Debate team because we know that’s what
resumes love and that’s what colleges
love but we’d much rather be part of the
juggling club or the sci-fi movie club
when I had to start recruiting kids to
go on the Nicaragua trip by saying oh
it’s a great thing to put on your resume
it really helps with college admissions
and then I saw the influx of students
something just did not add up so I leave
you guys with a challenge today to drop
everything that is artificial in your
life just stop doing things for your
parents for your peers for your coaches
for your teachers and do them for
yourself and be selfish and I mean this
in the best way possible because this is
where you’re going to find your meeting
and I’m sorry I was not able to tell you
your meaning of life because there isn’t
necessarily this blanket term I found I
found that we all have our own
individual meaning that we are going to
find in the things that we love to do
not the things that we think we love to
do it’s when we step outside our comfort
zones and put ourselves out to the world
saying this is me and this is what I
want to do where we are going to find
our meaning so I challenge you to stop
what you’re doing and stop looking for
the meaning and the artificial things in
your life and start doing for yourself
thank you [Applause]