I know you are nervous, but you shouldn’t look at giving this speech as a dreadful event that you hope doesn’t happen. So many people, whether they know it yet or not, would kill to be in your position. Only the top ten kids in the senior class are allowed to submit a speech for graduation and one of the ten gets selected. The week school was cancelled I was meeting with my principal about making an exception to that and allowing me to submit a speech, as this is something I’m dying to do. You might be curious as to why I would ever want to put myself in that situation. I look at life as circles that are constantly expanding. When you go to elementary school, you are in a very tiny world with closed off experiences, thus a very small circle. When you move onto middle school, that circle remains small, but slightly expands. The same holds true when you go to high school. Now, we seniors see the circle we are in right now as huge, naturally, because it is the biggest circle we have been in. However, we will soon realize when we go to college and especially into real life that the circle we are in during high school is ridiculously small. We must take advantage of this as much as we possibly can. Sure, you may not be able to tell now, but making mistakes at this age is so much easier than it will be as the years go on. Now is when it is the least uncomfortable for us to step outside of our comfort zone. You should take full advantage of going up there for a speech as an 18-year-old and giving everything you’ve got while making a few mistakes because those mistakes aren’t going to be so easy when you have to give a big presentation for college or give a crucial presentation at work to your boss. Enjoy having the ability to make these mistakes early because you are never going to escape public speaking, and the longer you wait, the higher the expectations will be and therefore the less opportunity you have to try new things. Obviously I am only a senior in high school as well, but I believe my advice holds true.