Dear Future Generations Three Philosophies

life

is hard life wasn’t meant to be easy

if it was what would be the point of

living

think about that for a second

we all go through different struggles

and hardships but it is about how we

respond to these challenges in our lives

that define us for me

my middle school years were some of the

darkest times in my life

but i wouldn’t trade these moments away

for all the knowledge and mistakes i

made which make me that person i am

speaking to you all today

now you may be thinking here comes a

motivational talk

about the meaning of life from a young

man with little to none life experience

and well you nailed it

i’m attempting to motivate my peers to

recognize their hardships

without competing for the most trauma

because not only do our obstacles help

us grow

they define our character our character

is a way the world can view upon us is

also a way we can perceive ourselves

it is defined by the choices we make and

our mentality has to be strong

to make these difficult choices we

encounter in life

get ready to be motivated by three

philosophies i’m going to provide to you

these philosophies in no particular

order of importance

will help strengthen your mentality

follow these and whatever life throws at

you i believe

you’ll be able to handle it now how did

i realize and articulate these

philosophies in the first place

i’ve accumulated them for my humble 16

years of life

in conjunction with the life experiences

of those around me

i believe they can help other people

around my age

so without further ado

the first philosophy today is you have

to have

self-discipline i recently read

the book think and grow rich by napoleon

hill

it’s a great book it essentially helps

get your mentality

ready to accumulate riches i want to

mention

a quote from this book it speaks of

self-discipline and it reads

if you do not conquer self you’ll be

conquered by self

i’m going to say that again if you do

not conquer self

you’ll be conquered by self

for me this quote is very significant

and it is the wallpaper on the lock

screen on my phone so you best believe

i’d be seeing it every single day of my

life

and this quote is something i believe

everyone should live by every day of

their life because the principle

of this quote and of self-discipline is

very simple

if you cannot control yourself you

cannot control your life

there’s no questions about it

i believe we’ve all gone in an argument

with our family members and we snapped

at them because we were angry

or they were disagreeing with us in some

type of way

i believe we all have peers nowadays

that procrastinate from their lives

and most likely spend 12 plus hours a

day on their phone just scrolling

through tick tock and

instagram i for one have friends

who take highly addictive substances

like nicotine

and to this day continue to take these

substances even

after several attempts to quit

now i’m going to share you a story about

my good friend omar

who i’ve gotten permission of to tell

you all about him and the principle of

self-discipline

you see my friend omar he’s an excellent

basketball player

he’s currently on the jv team for his

high school and he might move up to

varsity next year

well in middle school he would have

described himself as a bit lazy

he was still a good basketball player

but he was at a plateau in his

basketball career he needed to learn how

to take his game

to the next level well in the middle of

8th and 9th grade

something snapped he suddenly had a

strong desire

to take this basketball talent and make

something out of it

he knew he had to work hard to achieve

this goal but he had to discipline

himself to work harder than anyone else

he described to me that he took a lot of

sacrifices

and it took a lot out of him you see

he did multiple workouts a day every day

whether it be early in the morning or

late at night

he did all of this because he knew he

was bound

to get great results may i remind you

omar is currently on the jv team for his

high school

he tells me that the varsity coach is in

talks of him

of moving up next year i’ve known omar

for 11 years now

and to me he is the living breathing

definition

of hard work and self-discipline

now we move on to the second philosophy

today which is caring about yourself

first

before you care about others otherwise

known as self-care

do not put the happiness of others ahead

of your own

the only thing you should feel like

doing which may seem a little selfish

is caring about yourself whether it be

physically or mentally

for example you could be eating cleaner

you can be doing more exercise

or you could even be reading a book

nowadays which is very unlikely

but just doing your own thing

do not let others discourage you to do

the things that you don’t enjoy to do

because the only things you should feel

like doing are the things that you enjoy

to do

whether they like it or not

also take time to yourself because this

is very

something very also

take time for yourself because this is

something very essential

for your well-being we can often be

caught up doing things for others

while not really taking care of

ourselves furthermore

do not let others make decisions for you

because you it will usually benefit them

and not you what i’m trying to get at

here with all these points

is be your own person stop

trying to fit in just do your own thing

because for me it makes me really angry

that there are people every day

that get controlled by their friends and

their loved ones they become a living

replica

of that person who influenced them

they have potential to be a great person

but it is wasted by

peer pressure getting to the best of

them

and as for an example of this just look

at me

i would describe myself as a very

vulnerable person

in middle school what i mean by this is

i was afraid to say no i was afraid to

disagree to my friends because

i believe their judgment was higher than

mine i believed that their decisions

were better than mine

i was just trying to fit in with them

because they were the cool kids because

they were the people who were most

popular

my father saw what was going on and he

knocked some sense into my head

you see he said get a grip on your life

because it is yours and not theirs

and with that little bit of wisdom i

changed

i became a less shy more confident

person

heck i did an entire ted talk

there were people that didn’t like the

new me and those who did

i just simply don’t talk to them much

anymore

everything i did was for me and only me

speaking of cutting people off you do

not have to be around people you don’t

want to be around

but there is an exception to this

because as dependents we cannot yet

remove toxic family members from our

lives

but what i’m more concerned about today

is friendships

and intimate relationships there’s this

old saying that states

tell me who your friends are and i will

show you your future

this statement still holds up to this

day remember when i said

our character is a way the world can

view us

well our relationships is another way

the world makes judgments upon us

am i saying it’s bad to have friends

to have a lot of friends absolutely not

but you have to find the real friends to

have a great supporting cast around you

and at the end of the day it is your

choice

you choose you want to be around and

nobody can take that right away from you

if you have this if you feel as this one

person is not being honest with you or

another is lowering your self-esteem

then just simply cut them off

it’s just not worth it do not let

other people control your life be the

captain

of your own ship now we move on to the

final philosophy

which is do not be afraid of

failure and for me

this was the hardest one to get down as

those of you who are close to me know

i am very competitive

i don’t take losing very lightheartedly

but i’d argue that

you don’t have to be uber competitive to

relate to this

i believe everyone was once or still is

afraid

of making mistakes you want to know an

interesting statistic

around the halloween time of 2015 a

goal-based network

did a survey on what people’s worst fear

was

this gold-based network was named

linkagle and

out of 1083 respondents a third’s

worst fear was failure

to understand how we fear failure in the

first place we want

we must understand why we fear it and i

feel like the answer to this is

very very simple we want to be perfect

we want to be perfect for those around

us we want to be perfect for ourselves

we set ourselves to high standards and

we don’t want to disappoint the people

around us

but i feel like and i think everyone’s

heard this before

you cannot be perfect and for it to take

effect

into your for it to take effect in your

life you have to embed it

in your head because

let’s face it the people you adore

aren’t perfect the celebrities you look

up to

aren’t perfect i am not perfect you are

not perfect nobody

on this planet is perfect

that’s why i believe perfection is a

myth

so if we can take this desire to be

perfect

and make it seem irrational then we

could take

failure and accept it with open arms

because with failure comes mistakes and

with mistakes comes learning

opportunities

so if we can take

this opportunity we have of failure

and uses to help us grow we then

increase our self-worth

a word of caution however do not be

caught up making the same mistakes over

and over again

because that just means you’re wasting

your time

you’re not learning anything now what’s

a great example

in the real world of success from

failure

well i want you guys to take a look at

michael jordan he’s quoted saying

i’ve missed more than 9 000 shots in my

career

and i’ve lost almost 300 games

26 times i’ve been trusted taking the

games winning shot

and i missed i failed over and over and

over again in my life

and that is why i succeed now

michael jordan is pretty well known for

his success so if you can’t take it from

me

take it from him there you have it

the answer to all of life’s questions

not really there are more motivational

philosophies i’ve couldn’t have gone

into

but these are the ones that helped me

get through middle school

check back in with me after college and

i may have 10 philosophies to live by

better yet after retirement i may have

consolidated all of life’s mysteries

into one simple philosophy all i can

offer you today

is what i know and that is the three

secrets to living a successful life

are self-discipline self-care

and self-worth

[Applause]