Ever since I was in grade school, I’ve always been relatively shy and unconfident when speaking in front of people. At the end of my senior year I was forced to face my fear of public speaking. Every year the faculty and all the members of the senior class vote on two people to speak at the graduation ceremony. I was very surprised when I was pulled into the principal’s office one day during the final weeks of school and told I was voted to be a speaker. Although I was honored to be selected, I was very uneasy about talking in front of hundreds of people at graduation.

I remember going home from school that day and thinking “I have to finish this speech in one week and I have no idea what to talk about!” I began by brainstorming for ideas and memories from grade school, but I didn’t think any of those were good enough for my speech. But just as I seemed to be the most stressed out, the idea just hit me.

I furiously began writing a speech about how our class is like a puzzle. We all have a special meaning and purpose in our puzzle. But as some of us think that our puzzle is the only puzzle, we are only about to find out that our puzzle is just one small piece in the puzzle of life. After writing the speech and proofreading it about a million times by not only me, but several of my teachers, I finally handed it in. As most people would think writing it would be the difficult task, I disagree, because now I had to do the hard part, actually read it at graduation.

If I had learned anything about myself throughout high school, it was definitely that I hated talking in front of people. I mean don’t get me wrong, I looooove talking, but anytime I have to talk in front of even a class of 15, I get a weird feeling in my stomach, my voice quivers, and I get very sweaty. I decided that to try to avoid screwing up, I would just memorize my four page speech and that is exactly what I did. I practiced my speech over and over and over again until I knew almost every line of it.

When graduation day finally came, I delivered my speech (only messing up once) and it felt amazing. I received so many compliments on my speech and my public speaking skills, skills that I didn’t even know I had! I definitely felt that I was at my best on graduation day because I confidently delivered a speech in front of over 500 people, when before I was scared to even speak to a class of fifteen. The opportunity to speak gave me a whole new kind of confidence that will stay with me forever.