Finding Yourself

This I Believe. What strong words for one so young. We were asked by our English teacher to write a This I Believe speech to be sent to NPR. I guess it was her way of helping us get our ideas together so we don’t enter the world like bumbling idiots without direction. I stand before you now, a senior in High School, 17 years of age. I am a bumbling idiot without direction. My world is a sea of possibilities and I am drowning, searching for something that will keep me afloat.

When I started writing this paper, I ran through all the possible things I could write about, all the great beliefs I had stored within my soul, and like many of us, not much came of it. I realized that I shouldn’t have to search for my belief, it should already be there. But mine wasn’t.

So what do I believe? I believe that beliefs take time. I believe that as 17 and 18 year old young adults we deserve the right to mucky lives. We deserve the right to uncertainty. Each of us is lost in ourselves, tumbling about with the wind, and as young travelers we deserve a chance to discover our world before we define it.

We, all of us, have thousands of beliefs itching under our skin, waiting to pass our lips, fly out, and open the eyes of another in a life changing experience. But a precious few of us know what our true belief is, and all in all that’s what this speech is about. It’s about finding that one belief that keeps your head held high when all else fails. It’s about finding a belief worth living by.

So, I say we take the time. Not just a month, or a few soul searching days. Take a year, why not take a life time and find what it is that makes you so uniquely you. Now that, that’s something worth living by.