By Joyce Gong:
On Diversity Day 2020, a little over 1,300 students filed into the auditorium of Belmont High School to hear the Keynote Speaker Anthony Valentine discuss mental health and struggles.
Valentine started off his speech discussing that he had much difficulty overcoming his mental issues, stating that his plan was never to become a high school motivational speaker. Instead, like many he had the dreams of becoming a doctor. He had been pushing through on this path until he realized that he had no idea why he was still pushing. Anthony Valentine said that the “advice people have for me is always to keep going. But I don’t think those people know what you and I are going through... sometimes we question if we want to keep going.” He spoke from his heart and even asked “why and how should [we] keep going?”
Even in an environment like Belmont High School where people are often supported by their peers, we all still struggle in validating ourselves. When Valentine asked “who has to wear a mask through the halls of this school? Who doesn’t feel like they can be themselves?”, 90% of the student body stood up.
However, even with the necessity of hearing this, many students couldn’t stop thinking that perhaps his speech was too much of a cliché. He quoted people who had often been quoted before, such as Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Students even suggested that perhaps his book, The Way the River Flows, may just be a collection of overstated ideas and thoughts. Other students disagreed saying that Valentine’s book, and the ideas within it, was mentioned quite a lot because of its importance. They agreed with his sentiment when he said,
“You throw a log in the river and the water always flows around it, and that’s how my life is.”
Anthony Valentine attempted to reassure students that by understanding his philosophy, their lives would improve. His motto, he said, was the “three P’s”: passion, persistence and purpose. Valentine wanted to share his experience so that the students at BHS would not have to go through the hardships he went through. Valentine said “no matter how fast you go, how hard you run, the finish line is not going to move” and that “this is your book, so run at your own pace.” But maybe, he thought, it was because of his hardships that he was able to feel such a large impact; maybe, therefore, it was important for students to make their own mistakes. Although he said that “a doctor heals hearts, I heal souls,” perhaps some souls can only be healed by fixing one’s own mistakes.
In the face of many mixed opinions, neither I nor Anthony Valentine can decide for you: Was this speech a cliché or a must say?