In the movie The Vow, Channing Tatum, who plays Leo, says :

“I have a theory…. My theory is about moments, moments of impact. My theory is that these moments of impact, these flashes of high intensity that completely turn our lives upside down actually end up defining who we are. The thing is each one of us is the sum total of every moment that we’ve ever experienced with all the people we’ve ever known. And it’s these moments that become our history. Like our own personal greatest hits of memories that we play and replay in our minds over and over again.”

Let’s be honest with each other for a second. Every one of you will have to make choices; lots of you already have. Some of those choices have been easy. It wasn’t difficult to see what you needed to choose and then choose it; others though, were probably a lot harder. A lot of you were probably torn between what you wanted to do and what you needed to do.

Regardless of what you chose, every choice leads to a moment, and very moment leads to the person you are today. Your experiences define you, they form the person you are and the things you choose to do, the things you think, and the lifestyle you lead.

For many of you, you’ve had someone there to monitor your choices, to oversee what moments you got to experience and what moments were better left untouched. Chances are, for a lot of the things that you were dissuaded from doing, you found a way to do them anyway. That’s natural. People like to experiment, and we crazy teenage folk tend to not trust people based on what they say; we need to experience it for ourselves.

But, here’s the thing. Every time that we’ve gone out on a limb, done something that we weren’t supposed to do because we wanted to see what it was like on the other side, every time we’ve messed up and had nothing but the broken pieces of our lives to show for it, someone was there to help us put it back together. Someone helped us figure out how to glue everything back together, how to remedy our mistakes and help us understand what we should have done instead.

Time after time again, we’ve all messed up. We’ve all made mistakes and had regrets. We have things that we look back on and think to ourselves, “I coulda, woulda, shoulda done this, this, and that differently, and then, maybe things wouldn’t be the way they are now.”

No one is perfect, and I understand that, but I also understand that I couldn’t be where I am now if I didn’t have my parents to help me make choices, to choose the moments I experienced, and then to fix things when I chose the wrong experience. Someone was always looking out for me, and someone was always looking out for you.

Seniors, soon you will be entering a world where you are completely and totally independent and on your own. There’s not going to be someone who sets a curfew, who washes your clothes for you or reminds you to do your homework. You will be in charge of yourself and will be free to do anything you please. But, I want to caution you. There’s a lot of freedom that comes with college, there are a lot of impactful moments that will come flying at you from all directions. Please, remember to choose your moments. I would hate to see you choose the wrong one and be on your own with no one to help you put yourself back together.

It’s like Tatum said, “The thing is, each one of us is the sum total of every moment that we’ve ever experienced with all the people we’ve ever known. And it’s these moments that become our history. Like our own personal greatest hits of memories that we play and replay in our minds over and over again.”

You wouldn’t want to be replaying a sad song over and over again in your head, right? Think about the type of song you want your life to play to the next time you’re at a crossroads and faced with an imminent decision.

Good luck, everyone.