2022 val speeches, ATEMS' Fang: Live life as a face-to-face relationship

Before I start my speech, I would like to thank my parents for always supporting me and getting me through the past 17.75 years.

I want to thank my sister for her tips, advice and motivation. Also, I would like to thank my Kemosabes. Aaron, thank you for your loyalty and your constant sharpening of my faith. Steven, thank you for your brutal honesty, authenticity and great smile. Claude, thank you for being there since Day 1. Thank you for always having my back. I would not be here without you.

Finally, thank you to every single one of the teachers and administrators for your endless support, guidance, wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 1 2-4. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher. Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the Earth remains forever.”

Over the past four years, this verse has prevailed in my mind, partially as a defense mechanism to survive my failing grades on Mrs. Jera Bunton’s economics tests, but mostly, it was a burden. If my labors were meaningless and I would die with my generation regardless of merit and achievement, what did matter? What isn’t meaningless?

Every single person here has overcome so much to be where you are. I have seen your struggles, existential crises, and 3 AM study sessions. Of course, Ms. Stephanie Angell knows all about our calculus ones. However, more than that, I am honored to have seen the blooming relationships that have formed. You have sharpened, loved, and inspired each other. Everybody in this class impacted everyone in some way.

The impact that you have on each other is meaningful. Maybe your name will be forgotten in the sands of time, but I am a firm believer that what we’ve learned from each other will be passed on until the end of time.

Let me give you all advice and a warning. I worked hard to be standing in front of you today as valedictorian. But that came at the cost of my relationships. I often chose to do homework and accumulate my 2.6 million Khanacademy points over spending time with the people around me. And I regret that.

Don’t sacrifice the relationships with the people around you for the sake of achievement. Look at the parents, teachers, and peers that have helped to get you to where you are and thank them! Every single one of them has been an important part of your development as an individual through their guidance and support.

For all of time, people have sought lives of substance and permanent contentment. Transcendentalists like Thoreau lived in a cabin in the woods for two years to seek contentment. Art and creative expression sought this reality in romanticism. Currently, I don’t know if it is even possible to be permanently content.

However, I am led to believe that relationships and conversations can be the purest form of living. In sports, being fully present is difficult. When I try to actualize the mental image of hitting a tennis ball in the court, I usually shank and miss, and then my doubles partner gets mad at me. Then, I get embarrassed, sad, and lose the match. Not necessarily in that order. However, in conversation, the thoughts coursing through your mind are purely expressed. Your thoughts and your physical actions have the most unity in face-to-face conversation.

So, get off your phone and actually have a face-to-face conversation with someone. Based on my own personal phone addiction, I promise conversations will leave you more satisfied than the mindless scrolling of TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. Go live life while you can. Before the sands of time catch up with you. We’ve got one shot at this short game called life.

Go reach out to someone that you haven’t talked to in a while. Go meet someone new. Everyone has so much to offer and so much to learn from, and it would be a genuine waste to spend that time conforming to the screen addiction that is so prevalent today. I can confidently say that likes are meaningless. Followers are meaningless. Sending empty snaps to your 50 streaks is meaningless. Maybe your clash of clans account is meaningless too. Nah, that’s too far. Obviously, there are productive ways to use social media and clash of clans in terms of relationships, but more often than not, the minutes you spend fulfilling your instantaneously gratifying addictions is a minute taken away from relationships. From your life.

Don’t believe me? Harvard did a 75-year study where researchers gathered a group of Boston kids and studied them for the entirety of their lives. Through all the research, brain scans, and living-room conversations, the clearest message that rang true was, “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

Even though Harvard rejected me, I still find difficulty questioning the validity of this idea.

We are about to be launched into the real world. Into life! It is your choice to live a life of quality time, conversation, and relationship or a life of mindless conformity to society’s desires and your immediate pleasure. Please, Class of 2022, choose the former. In this room, there are future doctors, math teachers, meteorologists, aerospace engineers, software developers, politicians, welders, soldiers and nuclear reactor researchers.

I am looking at the movers and shakers of our generation. However, regardless of the future success that I know many of you will have in your life, please don’t sacrifice the relationships with the people around you for the sake of your achievements. Choose to carve out a little bit of time every day to spend with your friends and family. Choose to make someone’s day. Choose being present and being kind. Choose to take care of yourself and those around you.

And whenever you do achieve, think of your opportunities and accomplishments as pathways to further develop yourself, strengthen your relationships, and build new ones.

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to grow and develop alongside you all. I want to genuinely thank every single one of you for the impact you have had on me. We survived a global pandemic, Zoom classes and numerous awkward high school dances. Through online school and the loss of in-person interactions, I am now even more convinced of how much you have meant to me. T

he fulfillment I have experienced from forming such strong relationships in high school have made ATEMS a community that I am proud to represent.

To bring this back to Ecclesiastes, I would like to leave you and whatever attention span you have left with this:

Ecclesiastes 4:12: "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

ATEMS Class of 2022, thank you. And good luck.

— Frank Fang, ATEMS valedictorian

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: ATEMS' Fang: Live life as a face-to-face relationship