Final Thoughts on My Sophomore Year

Hey everyone! So for me, my sophomore year is officially over. I'm so thankful for everyone in my life who has helped made sophomore year memorable. That includes literally anyone reading this because if you're reading this, you have taken the time to care and share my passion of writing with me and I am so thankful for that. So thank you so much, and please enjoy this speech that I wrote as a reflection of what this school year meant to me.

**Final Thoughts on My Sophomore Year**

Someone once said that “Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.” It makes me sad to think that I didn’t realize this until the end of this school year because it would’ve helped a lot to know that things do get better. For me, my sophomore year was one of the toughest years I’ve ever had to go through. It was a difficult road that seemed to only lead me to places of sorrow and sadness.

When writing this speech I looked back at the events that my sophomore year consisted of and there were very few moments that I remember me smiling and being truly happy. Even so, through these sad moments, the ones that I had to go through with tears and sighs, I’ve learned lessons that I’m now so grateful for. A man named George Bernard Shaw once said that we should write about our sad times in sand and our good times in stone. For me sophomore year was a massive pile of sand but now that the waves has washed all these struggles away I’ve been left with a pile of stones that I have gotten to uncover. I’d like to share some of these stones with you all, so that maybe if you haven’t had such a great year either, you can realize with me that you can look past the bad and find wonderful things.

One thing that I learned from my sophomore year is that you shouldn’t stress out too much. I feel like this is something that some of you might think is obvious but for me it was pretty hard. During sophomore year, I probably got an average of 2-3 hours of sleep every day. I was exhausted and tired but could never fall asleep because of the constant stress and anxiety. I often laid in bed stressing about random things that I really didn’t need to be stressing about. I ruined my health and my own happiness. So trust me, although it’s hard, it’s worth it to try, really try, not to stress too much. It’s important to realize that not everything matters so much and it’s okay to relax a little and just have fun.

A second thing that I learned from my sophomore year is that it helps to talk to people. During sophomore year I realized how hard it was to go through things and keep it to yourself. I also realized how hard it was to open up to people and talk about personal things. Even so, now that I look back I have realized how much better it was to open up. So yeah, of course some people might mistreat your trust, but it’s not okay to distance yourself because of this fear. Talking to people is so much better than just keeping everything to yourself. It’s so important for each one of us to know that there’s people out there who care about us. That we aren’t ever alone, even if we feel lonely.

The third thing that I learned from my sophomore year is that you have to have confidence. From my sophomore year I have learned that the world is a scary place that will only continue to become scarier if you don’t have faith in yourself. I know as a stand up here and say this some of you might’ve already thought I was confident and some of you may think I’m still not but as I stand up here I have so much more confidence in myself than I thought I ever would’ve before. And it feels good. It feels good to not tear myself down about everything and it feels good to believe in myself more.

So sophomore year. My sophomore year. It was a year of finding myself. It was a year of being exhausted and confused. It was a year of thinking that nothing would get better. But more importantly it’s a year where things did get better. I year where being exhausted and confused led to moments of clarity. It was a year where I found myself and learned how to be happy. Sophomore year to me is one that holds so many lessons that I know I will cherish for the rest of my life. I will cherish the lessons of stressing less, of opening myself up to people, and of believing in who I am.

I hope that if any one of you have had a tough year or have had days where you feel like you just can’t handle it anymore. Remember that although every day may not be good, there is something good in every day. It is just like the Buddha once said, “Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.”