Chapel Words

A couple of weeks ago, I had a talk with Mr. Welsh in his office. I got myself into a situation involving a lot of lies. During the talk, Mr.Welsh suggested I challenge myself to be honest. Today, I want to honour that challenge by telling each and every one of you the truth. But before I say more about that, I’d like to tell you a smaller story.

 

Two summers ago, I volunteered at a day camp in my local community centre. I volunteered in the inclusion side of the camp, for kids with disabilities. It was here, when I met an eight-year-old with down syndrome named, Devan. On the first day of camp, Devan’s mother courageously dropped her son off. Devan would now be in the hands of a stranger, me. She gave me a firm handshake and then looked at me and said, “Thank you for helping out.” For any parent, kids are one of the most important things in their life, and for her do that with so much confidence demonstrated her faith in me. Now, if I had only remembered that lesson in trust, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble this year.

 

Toward final exams last year, I was failing Pre-Calculus 11. I remember hearing the mark I would need to pass this course. At the time, the idea of focusing all my energy onto this one exam which I had a high chance of failing seemed illogical. I would have to let all my other classes slip. Therefore, I made the decision in my brain to “let go” of math. It was no surprise that two weeks later, after receiving my report card, I learned I had failed the course. Although, until I physically held my report card and read those words, I was always in slight denial. I had an epiphany in the end of June, and I thought: I can’t believe I just failed this course! But with my stubborn attitude, I said to myself, this has to change, so I decided to attempt to take Pre-Calculus 11 and Pre-Calculus 12 in the summer.

 

Despite working extremely hard all summer long, I did not complete my goals. Upon my late arrival to the School, I told people I had finished. They wanted to believe I had done it, and so did I. While I was lying to others, I was also lying to myself. A lie seemed much easier than the truth at the time, but that wouldn’t last. I thought that coming back to school with these courses done would be like, “Hey I’m the comeback kid,” all “smart” and stuff. Though the comeback kid story was clearly not a success. For one, and most importantly, I didn’t finish.

 

Most lies start off small, and then quickly become too big for us. My lie started small, too. But as days progressed, then weeks, and soon months, my lie continued to build. Day after day, lie after lie, I struggled to keep the story together. The worst part of all is that I lied to people who cared about me, people who were trying to help me succeed. It was the feeling of disappointing people that hurt the most. That disappointment came from an underlying aspect of expectation. Living at Shawnigan, we all have expectations placed upon us, we so badly… want to live up to it that sometimes… incorrectly…we lie to fit the mould of what others hope for us.

 

Back to my experience with Devan for a moment: The bond of trust I created with Devan’s mother continued for the rest of the summer. In fact, at the end of the camp, she offered me a job as his babysitter. It was humbling to have his mother respect me because of the honesty and trust I had created in our relationship.

 

When you lie to people, you build a fantasy of what you want to believe is true but, deep down, you know is false. It is only a matter of time before the lies start to catch up to you. Through this whole mess, I have realized the value of trust. Not to sound overly dramatic or cliché, but trust is such a scared thing between people. Shawnigan is built on trust, and because it is so common here, sometimes it’s easy to forget the importance of it. I am currently working to rebuild that trust. That’s why it’s so important to me that I stand here before you today.

 

So, if there’s one thing you could take away from my speech, (other than the fact that I failed Math 11), hopefully it is the importance of honesty and trust. I am now slowly distancing myself from my fictitious life, and rather staying true to who I am, and trying to be content with that. Living a life that is real to you is one of the hardest things, but when you live that life, only then are you truly living.

 

Thank you.