Not A Yankee

It’s May, Justin Timberlake. The time of the year where high school teachers everywhere sit through valedictorian speeches that usually start something like this: 

“As we step into this next chapter, we leave this chapter, reflecting on the lessons of this chapter, and begin a new chapter.”

Let’s be honest seniors, you didn’t read that many books. 

This past weekend, one of our graduating seniors at Doris Todd Christian Academy delivered an extraordinary graduation speech. According to his English teacher, this student (we’ll call him K) is the most sophisticated writer she has ever taught. With that kind of hype, the faculty eagerly anticipated something eloquent, organized, and polished–you know, the typical markers of “extraordinary.” Instead, K made no attempt to sound “academic” or pandering. He spoke to the audience as if they were his school friends with perfect amounts of snark and gratitude. And not a chapter in sight. 

K is a kid entering adulthood with more questions than answers. He hasn’t had it easy either. But he embraces those realities while living out one of the most essential lessons that any high schooler could learn: pursuing goodness. 

K gave me permission to post his speech. Enjoy, and happy graduation month! 

Not A Yankee

There are many people who I would like to thank today. But the prestigious honor of the first of those who I wish to thank must go to all of those kids I met during my time at my last high school who treated me like dirt. Never would have got here without you. No, seriously.

Y’know, when you’re a kid, people always ask you what you wanna be when you grow up. And the funny thing about these toddlers is that despite them only having been on planet Earth for about five and a half milliseconds, they somehow know exactly the answer to that question of “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” They know everything.

They’ll tell you “I’m gonna be an astronaut and I’m gonna drive an awesome sports car and I’m gonna live in a huge fancy mansion in California with my attractive wife and seven kids—four boys and three girls—Larry, Carrie, Barry, Mary, Harry, Sherry, and Bartholomew.”

When I was in this position, I was dead set on the fact that I was gonna be in the MLB. Nothing was gonna stop me. I was gonna be the starting second baseman/left fielder for the New York Yankees, batting at the top of the lineup with an average in the mid-300s, and they were gonna retire my number 31 and hang it in monument park. To most of you, the majority of what I just said was gibberish but if you were to ask nine year old me what he wanted his future to look like, this was something along the lines of what he would have told you.

One fateful and bright, sunny summer afternoon in the beautiful suburbs of Bridgewater, New Jersey my mother spoke to me words that I will never forget.

“Son, you are not going to be a Yankee.”

To which I said “What, you think I’m gonna play for the Orioles? The Blue Jays? The Red Sox? Nooo.” 

No, my mother looked me dead in the eye and told me straight that I was not good enough at baseball to get into the Major Leagues. After which I promptly fled to my room and cried myself to sleep because all of my highest hopes and dreams had just been broken into a million pieces that were now scattered about the floor. 

But this memory goes to show that even though when you’re a kid you think you’ve got it all figured out, and that you can be whatever you want, that the world is your oyster and the future is whatever you make it—that really isn’t always the case. I am not going to be the starting second baseman for the New York Yankees. I’m also probably not going to live in a huge mansion and eat nothing but Cheeto Puffs. That’s just life. 

And what stinks about this whole “knowing exactly what you wanna be when you’re a toddler” thing is that now that I actually have to make that decision for real, I have next to no idea. When you grow up, you gotta make a lot of tough decisions. Where do you wanna live? What do you wanna do? Who do you wanna do it with? That kinda thing. And while I might have an idea, a semblance of an answer to one or two of these kinds of questions, I’m still very much in the dark. I’m not sure what I wanna be when I grow up.

But I do know exactly what I don’t wanna be, and I can thank the kids at my last school for that. While high school may have taught me ever-important lessons like the fact that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, that a potassium atom has 20 neutrons, and that Pythagoras once stated that the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the two other sides, perhaps the single most important lesson that the high school experience has taught me is how and how not to be a half-decent human being.

For all that it’s worth, while I may not become an astronaut, a movie star, an esteemed scientist of some kind, or the starting second baseman for the New York Yankees, and while I may not strive for any of those things either, I can at least say with every ounce of truth that I have ever made any utterance, this: I’ll try my best to be decent. Honest. Loyal. Patient. That kind of thing. Because I guess that growing up has shown me just how important that is, to me at least, compared to most of the other things that people strive for. Achievement. Accolades. Approval. People nowadays want to memorialize themselves in the things they’ve done, the places they’ve gone. They seek to impress.

The fact of the matter is that those kinds of things don’t really leave a mark on people. They’ll remember you, sure, if you’ve accomplished something great, and if you have, then good for you, that’s fantastic. But I suppose, to me, it’s not so much about if I’m remembered, instead, it’s more so how.

And I guess to me if I’m remembered fondly by people who I knew in life, then that’s all that really matters. So as I finally get done with the crazy cesspool that is high school, I don’t have very big plans for the future. If anything, my life will probably wind up being extraordinarily uninteresting to those on the outside looking in. But that’s fine. That’s not important. My parents moved here for the sole purpose of being good people, and I thought they were insane because of it. But seeing that juxtaposed with the tyranny and apathy I got the pleasure of witnessing a year or two ago kind of showed me how much being good actually makes a significant difference. 

So as I stand here in this ridiculous outfit, I want to say thanks to the kids at my last high school, and anyone else who I might’ve witnessed being less than kind, for showing me what not to be, but also thanks to the myriad of people who did just the opposite. 

Thanks, Mom, Dad, for raising me, and putting up with all my tomfoolery for eighteen arduous years. Thanks to my teachers, for putting up with my ineptitude for however many arduous months. Thanks to my friends, both the ones who are here and the ones who are very far from here. Thanks—everybody. Literally.

Thank you.