The Last Word

By Ollie Oberlin-Brown | Posted: Wednesday June 7, 2023

I knew I had to write this speech for over a term. I wrote this last night.

At the start of last term, when I had 15 weeks to write this speech it seemed so far away. I had no idea what I was going to write about, so instead of thinking about what to write I decided to wait for the holidays to start.  That's the problem though, it crept up on me putting me under more and more pressure to start writing. Instead of doing any thing about it, I just pushed it back again, making it even more harder on myself. To be honest with you all, I'm not great at public speaking. So standing up in front of you to talk about something I thought up last night scares me. I wish I could at least say the time I wasn’t writing this speech was spent well, but I can’t. When the holidays came around, I sat on my phone scrolling the hours away instead of actually doing something useful.

It frustrates me how much time I waste doing things that don’t even make me happy just to avoid making a hard choice.

There’s a quote from Picasso - “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die left undone.” That really hits home with how much of my life I am wasting. Most of my friends know about my surfboard. I’ve had everything I need to make it for nearly a year but I've been putting it off for so long. I'm not even finished now. Up until last weekend, I hadn't  touched it for 3 months. This is crazy because it's something I actually love doing. My go to excuse is that I'm too busy and have no time, but looking at my screen time, there's an extra 4 hours I could be using each day if I could just pull myself away from my phone.

I get it, social media is addictive, and I'm not going to go on a rant about how bad it is for you because I know how many times I've heard that, and how little it actually sinks in. I just want you to think about 2 things. How much of that time spent scrolling can you actually remember, and how good do you feel about yourself after you've turned your phone off. I spend at least 4 hours a day on my phone, that's 28 hours a week, more than a whole day. I can tell you right now, I don't remember any of it from more than a day ago. I know I hate the feeling of wasting a whole day when I'm lying in bed trying to remember one good thing, or one thing I'm proud of from that day and I can't think of anything.

I'm not saying, throw away your phone, but think about where you see yourself in 10 years and how what you're doing now is going to help you get there. If you think watching hours of tik tok is going to help you get there, then by all means keep scrolling.

I think just picking one thing to accomplish in a day and actually doing it is a huge step in the right direction to overcome procrastination. It doesn't have to be school work, everyone has different priorities. Just go out and do something that you'll be able to look back on and think I’m glad I did that. Go make moments worth remembering.

It is pretty scary to think that we've only got about 80% of our lives left ahead of us, so make all of it count boys, live a life worth remembering. I'll finish in OB’s tradition with a quote. This one is from Kevin Hart - “I don't care how busy I am, I will always make time for what's important to me.”