Article by senior student, Clark Stelter

One of the most prominent times in most everyone’s life is high school. New outfits, friend groups, acne, prom, drama, football games, jocks, nerds, inspirational graduation speeches, all this stuff and much more comes along with the final four years of schooling. You don’t want to regret anything after you graduate, and I’ve taken this to heart as much as I could.  I’ve chased my dreams and had fun when I could. Sometimes those dreams flourished, and sometimes they came back and slapped me in the face. No matter what though, I’ve concluded that it’s inevitable that things don’t always go the way you hoped, whether it’s sports or academics or friends. But sometimes they do, and high school can turn out one of the best experiences of your life.

Looking back on my four years, I thought to myself what I could’ve done differently. I don’t want people to look at this as some cliché “don’t take things for granted” speech. But read this as if you were reading a manual for how to fix a car because you can fix your high school years before they are over.  High school is just about as complicated as fixing a car, if not more.

The one thing that I wish I could go back and fix is that I never realized how much potential I actually had. I toyed around with working hard at different things, like running and music and homework, but I never got to the point where I went 110% and knew how much I could actually do. I had the potential to reach the personal records that I wanted to get in track or to get all A’s and B’s, but I didn’t understand that until this year.

I realize that different people do things differently, but whoever you are I know for a fact that you have the potential to do what you do best: being you. For me, that’s running, writing, having a good time with my friends, playing music, and most importantly being faithful to Christ and understanding His truth, grace, and love.  I believe that no matter what people will regret something, but regardless of what it is they can use that to push themselves to the next level and reach their potential if and when they go to college or get a career or whatever it may be.  In the end, they can reach the personal goal that they want to get to. They just have to realize that they have the potential.