Mamacita says:  Why stay in the box, all cramped and restricted and crowded with boring people, when it’s so much more fun to live OUTSIDE of the box?  Nobody who chose to live inside the box has ever changed the universe in any noticeable way.

Sing.  Dance.  Write poems and stories and plays and songs.  Draw.  Sculpt. Discover things.  Connect things.  Remember, everything is connected to everything else, and one of education’s jobs is to help students connect the dots.  There is nothing in the universe that you don’t know something about; my students probably know this entire speech by heart.  🙂

Well, it’s true.  You might not know enough to land the space shuttle, but if you can spell it, you know SOMETHING about it.  Can you perform delicate and complicated brain surgery?  Probably not, but you know where the brain is located; therefore, you have schema you can bring to the table about brain surgery.  Never underestimate yourself.  You know things.  You can do things.  And you have a story to tell that nobody else can tell.  Nobody knows it but you.

Who cares what the rest of the world thinks? Be yourself.  Nobody else can do it.

You have a message for the universe that only you can deliver.  Don’t let the world inhibit you.  Don’t let anybody talk you into keeping your message to yourself.

Naturally, if you’re an evil psychotic axe murdering terrorist or a deliberately annoying prick who likes to shoot, steal, pester, disrupt, or otherwise annoy others in both deadly and non-deadly ways, keeping them from their rightful participation in the celestial dance, this does not apply to you. I include people who get off on tickling someone until they cry in this category.

Behave yourselves.  Contribute.  We need you more than you could ever know, but unless you control yourselves and do what you were born to do, nobody will want to hear your message.

Remember who’s talking here.  🙂