"Make It This Far"

Have you ever let anyone down? You know you could've done better. You know you could've been better, but no. It wasn't enough. The same words repeat each time, echoing through your mind, piercing through your skin. You try to walk it off, but to what ends? It lingers. The body can only take so much, it's a matter of time before you fall apart. You continue to spiral, to descend, and to bleed even further. Why couldn't I have just done more? Why couldn't I have just been more? Until! You fail to meet your own expectations. Who else knows you better in the world? You do. And yet, you reach a point where even, you don't know why you can't do things right, you don't know why you're not enough, you don't know why you are nothing. It's the lowest of the low. What worth is there in someone incapable of meeting expectations they've set for themselves? Your own perception of yourself becomes hazy, confidence going lower and lower. The descent becomes continuous, the pressure builds up, you go down even further, until the weight crumbles you. Your head hurts, you bawl your eyes out, make it stop, make it stop!

When does it all stop? When does it all get better? The key to that, the key to fixing everything is yourself. The root of the problem, the root of this evil, the root of this suffering, stems from you. You expect others to expect so much of you. You expect others to expect everything of you. You expect yourself to reach those impossible expectations. You expect too much. You expect perfection, only to be met with imperfection. You decide that you have lost when the judges have not even spoken. You believe you have failed when you haven't even reached the end of the game. Expectations are not truth, perfection is not reality. What more can we do, when we're only human. We can only do so much, and we can only be perfect for so long. By nature, we are flawed. And yet we spend so much time lynching others for the mistakes that they make. Life is harsh, but I believe it is our own mentality, and our own insecurities, that make it even harsher for ourselves. I believe it is not what is that keeps you in your descent, but what you think is. Beliefs that you can do something impossible, beliefs that others believe you to do the impossible, beliefs that you have to do the impossible. It is unrealistic, and it is unfair. You can't do everything, and it's alright if you can't do everything. You just have to find it in yourself, to believe that, and to accept that. You can be better, you can do better. It's fine. You're fine.

“Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don’t ignore that critic but don’t give it more attention than it deserves.” That’s a quote that I managed to find that I think really resonates with what this speech wishes to tell. It hurts, and it sucks. It’s rough, having the feeling of letting people and yourself down from each failure you make, but is that really all that’s going to be left of you once the dust settles down? Are you just going to wallow into nothingness, wishing that you never tried at all?  Growing up, I never managed to get a real grasp of my responsibilities in time. I couldn’t keep up with my classmates properly, and I always felt like I was being chipped down, little by little, until nothing was left. Countless sleepless nights, and spending hours on the desk just to catch up to deadlines. Should I have just let go? If it was so heavy for me to bear, should I have just stopped and given up? Life only becomes harder as you go, and the expectations and goals that you have to meet will only get farther and farther. It’s impossible to live up to every expectation at the moment, and it’s arrogant to think that you should force yourself to, but at the very least, it’s important for you to give attention to it, so you can start working to meet that expectation. Maybe not today, but if you keep going, maybe someday, you’ll be able to reach those expectations. A weightlifter can only lift so much. They may not be as strong as Eddie Hall or as Brian Shaw, but if you truly want to improve, if you truly want to be better, you have to build up, little by little. You don’t always have to go heavy at first, the little steps are what’s important. Though heavy as they can be, if you go at it bit by bit, and step by step, while not being too hard on yourself for any little mistake, eventually you’ll get there, making not only others proud, but yourself, proud of the journey that you’ve gone through to make it this far.

A memorized speech by Gabriel Mercado of Grade 11. Delivered during the Elocution Contest 2024.