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Here's a speech written by my nephew Harry Rossi for his 5th grade graduation. His speech was not one of the two chosen to
be delivered at the graduation but is presented here for the edification of all:
WE ARE THE FUTURE
Future, definition: noun or adjective, "what is about to be". When we think of the future, we think of high-tech
gadgets to make life easier, and flying cars. Well, we're not going to have high tech gadgets or flying cars if we don't take
the time to create them. They will not appear out of thin air. In fact, no future that we can imagine or choose will appear
out of thin air, including a healthy environment where we can breathe and which we share with all living things, a cure for
disease, or world peace. To get there, we will need to take many risks.
Lemony Snicket, in his novel "The Slippery Slope," said, "Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because
sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there's something terrible lurking around that you cannot
see until its too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck." The point is, that we don't
know what the effect is going to be if we take a risk. But we do know what's going to happen if we don't take a risk. Nothing.
To take good risks you need courage and imagination. You need intelligence, not just academic intelligence, but the intelligence
of doing the right thing. If we don't keep learning, or we give up, then that's throwing away our future. We also need balance.
Not everything is about just sports, or just religion, or just science, or just money, or just the environment. We can't have
7/8ths of the world sitting on its butt watching T.V. while the other 1/8th is trying to save the world. We need everyone's
participation in everything, because everything connects.
How do we get this courage? How do we have this imagination? Some of us may look up to sports heroes, some of us may look
up to environmentalists, and some of us may look up to a religious figure. For me personally, I always turn to Teddy Roosevelt.
He was one of the most balanced people. He did it all. He was a boxer, an environmentalist, and a "God fearing"
president. He was also a scholar and a wise man.
Before I wrote this speech, I looked at Teddy Roosevelt's Inaugural Address, which he gave ninety-nine years ago. He told
us that modern life was "both complex and intense." He also told us that although the problems we face are different
from the ones our forefathers faced, the spirit needed to solve them "remains essentially unchanged." Our forefathers
did their work and left us "the splendid heritage we now enjoy", and that it is our duty to pass this heritage on,
not only "unwasted" but even better than before.
Our future will not be easy, and we cannot screw it up with the mistakes that we are making as we speak. We waste our
natural resources, we are at war with a lot of the world, we have a huge national debt, we are not sticking with the United
Nations, we rarely elect great leaders. In facing these problems, we might feel warm and comfortable one day, and the next
day be screaming while clinging to a plastic duck. But the point is, this is our chance.
© 2004 Harold Rossi
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