Good evening. First, I’d like to thank Ms. Vredenburg and
the Academic Boosters Club for inviting me to speak tonight. I remember
attending these awards ceremonies when I was at Northern and actually looking
forward to them; not to hear the cool and awesome speaker they always have,
like myself, but to see who would win the big money prizes they give out to the
top graduating seniors. I wasn’t into it for the money, because, let’s be
honest, the scholarships they award pay for like a week of class in Ann Arbor.
But oh boy that was a great week of class. Sorry parents – college is
expensive. No, I was into it for what it represented: recognition of 4 years of
hard work, of AP classes, of sports and extra-curriculars, of begging teachers
for extra credit…. The list goes on. I probably only won one because my mom was
on the scholarship committee, but seriously, it was a huge honor for me to be
awarded one, and congratulations to those seniors receiving one tonight.
In fact, congratulations to everyone here tonight – taking
the time out of your Wednesday night, when you could be watching American Idol
– that’s a big sacrifice, and I thank you. Don’t worry, moms, Steven Tyler will
be there on the Tivo when you get home.
I thought I’d take
this moment to pass along a few pieces of advice.
First, it’s cool to do well in school. I mean, look at Mark
Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. He’s worth like a trillion dollars. He can
wear t-shirts and hoodies to work whenever he wants because he owns like half
of the internet. But he couldn’t have invented Facebook and partied with Justin
Timberlake…oh wait that was just in the movie. He couldn’t have invented
Facebook, and gotten really rich, if he played videogames all day and all night
in his mom’s basement eating hot pockets, wearing just sweatpants and a
wifebeater. He worked hard. He read
books. He probably still reads books, when he’s not playing Farmville or coming
up with new, ingenious ways to sell our personal information to corporations. He
also has books written about him, which is perhaps the coolest thing ever.
Bottom line: he might dress dorky, he might act dorky, he
might even actually be a dork – but he’s a 27 year old in charge of $100
billion company that he himself created, and he’s living his dream. Unless his
dream was to play World of Warcraft all day in his mom’s basement, in which
case he severely outperformed his dream.
Some more advice: set goals for yourself. I’m a big believer
in the power of setting goals, and setting up a roadmap to achieving those
goals. It’s very easy to set out a plan, and then fail to put the work in to
make that plan a reality. It’s not always easy, in fact it’s usually not, but
the best things in life rarely are. And it makes it that much sweeter when you
succeed. And you will if you work hard enough and persevere.
My goal is to walk again someday and I know I will reach
that goal. I don’t know when but I know I will. I know because I’m taking the
same approach that helped me graduate from Northern with over a 4.0 and
graduate from U of M in 4.5 years despite spending the fall semester of what
would have been my senior year, before my victory lap, that’s we call a 5th
year of college, a victory lap, despite spending that fall semester in the
hospital.
You’ll hit some bumps in the road: I was hurt in Spain, and
spent 3 weeks there and 2 weeks back in the States on a ventilator, not being
able to speak. They say being bilingual boosts your brain activity and can over
time make you smarter. Well, not being able to speak in any language makes you
crazy. I couldn’t eat either, I was fed directly into my stomach for 2 months –
believe me, it’s pretty weird when you burp and taste the aftertaste of food
you didn’t actually eat, but instead had squirted into your stomach through a
tube.
Sometimes your goals might not turn out the way you plan. An
early goal I set for myself was to get out of Mary Free Bed for a day in
September, about a month after I got there, and go see a Michigan football
game. The doctors and therapists thought I was crazy, they never let spinal
cord patients out that early for trips but I wasn’t taking no for an answer.
This was my senior year, first game of the year, I wanted to see all my friends
and cheer on the Maize and Blue. Well, this turned out to be the Appalachian
State game. Yes, probably the biggest upset in college football history. I’m so
glad I worked my butt off to see that one. So that goal was an epic failure,
but I had many other small successes along the way. Getting my breathing tube
out. Getting my feeding tube out. Getting out of the hospital for good in early
November. Going back to school 2 months later on a part-time basis. All of
these were incremental goals I had to work to achieve, and once I did achieve
them, once I was able to breathe on my own again, once I was able to swallow
food again, well, it was hospital food so it wasn’t that cool, but once I was
able to get home and then get to Ann Arbor a couple nights per week, those were
pretty great moments, and well worth all the hard work.
And that brings me to my last point: you’ve got to work hard
to make it in this world. I’m not going to get out of this chair by sitting in
my basement, eating cheetos, wiping all that orange cheeto dust all over my
pants, feeling sorry for myself. I exercise 3 hours a day, 3 days a week,
standing and walking and lifting weights. The gym I go to is up in Rockford,
and sometimes when I’m driving home I almost fall asleep I’m so tired but then
I just crank the Justin Bieber a little louder and smile. Not because his voice
is silky smooth but because I know I worked hard that day and that’s what it’s
going to take to achieve my goals.
So those are the 3 things I want to leave you with tonight –
do well in school, because all the really cool kids are doing it, set goals and
then put in place a plan to achieve them, and finally, work hard to realize
those goals. Do those things, you’ll turn out alright. Thank you.
