Graduation Speech -- Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

I rediscovered something while trying to think of my speech for tonight. History repeats itself. Everything I felt compelled to say I knew has been said before and will be said in times to come. I grew dismayed at the thought that the human race has progressed so little that the same advice has as much merit now as it did when it was first given, millenniums ago. Yet there is a simple beauty in this. It reassures us that humans will always be human; that everyone is experiencing life for the first time, no matter how many ancestors lie before them. Since we are each seeing life anew, the same truths will occur again and again. These truths have brought us to this point in history; they will carry us for the rest of our lives. Inner motivation is the force that drives us upward and onward. We all know how to rely on that force. It does not matter what degree of "success" or "achievement" we reach, so long as what we do reach is comfortable for us. Whether our motivation compels us simply to make it to school each day, or to juggle multiple outside interests with difficult class loa...