Mr. Clawitter’s End of the Year Teacher Speech June 5, 2015 Huntington Beach High School

Clawitter Speech 6/5/15
Freedom comes with responsibility and the implied intent to choose what is right and beneficial. Freedom is the opportunity for responsibility. Freedom is the opportunity to choose what is right and beneficial. To those who choose to be responsible and choose what is beneficial, freedom is a blessing. To those who choose to be irresponsible and choose what is destructive, freedom is a curse.
Your success in life will be decided by whether or not you focus your energy and attention on the things that you can control or whether you will waste your energy and attention on the things that you cannot control You can control your attitude, you can control your thoughts, you can control your words and actions, and you can control what habits you form. Therefore, we all need to be constantly asking ourselves the following question always.
Is my attitude beneficial or does need to be improved?
Are my thoughts beneficial or do they need to be corrected?
Are my actions words and actions beneficial or do they need to change?
Are my habits beneficial or do I need to replace them with better ones?
These are the questions that we all need to ask ourselves always. Always beware of things that bring you temporary satisfaction at the cost of long-term detriment. Beware of advertisements for things you do not need. You never what to trade something you need for something you have been led to want. There are people out there who want to profit from you by trying to trade you something you vaguely want in return for you giving up something you need.
Ask yourself the following question. Am I investing my energy in improving myself or am I investing in my energy in improving my circumstances? Your circumstances are subject to change. If all your investment is in your circumstances, then when your circumstances change, you can lose all of your investment and along with your means to recover. If your investment is in improving yourself, then even if your circumstances change, you will have retained your investment and have the ability to recover afterward.
Life is not a sprint, but rather it is a marathon. All of you will face difficulties in life. What makes a person successful is not how they respond when the times are good, but how they respond when the times are difficult. You can control your attitude, your thoughts, your words and actions, and your habits, and you can face your challenges in life with integrity. There will be setbacks, so the successful ones are not the ones who run the fastest but the ones who makes preparations to be able able to run the farthest and are prepared for setbacks. Do not fear the setbacks, but be prepared, and know that when they come you will have the ability to get through it as long as you keep control of your attitude, your thoughts, your words and actions, and your habits.
Sometimes in life it is impossible to achieve something unless you risk failure. Other times in life it is better to choose the more difficult path that guarantees success rather that the easier path that has enormous potential gain, but a higher probability of failure. You will have to decide for yourself what risk of failure you are willing to accept for the potential reward of success. There are many things that will seem important that will turn out to be trivial. In the end, people will remember you by the integrity you lived your life and how you interacted with and treated other people.
Prepare yourself now to make beneficial choices. Make a plan on how to respond when someone tries to convince you to make choices that are not beneficial. Decide right now what is most important to you. Make promises to your future self and plan to keep them. Your future self will reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of the choices you will make. To each and every one of you I give you my blessing for your lives and this advice: Live with integrity. Seek constant self-improvement. Cherish the people in your life. Choose wisely.