SPEECH: Valedictorian, Yashvi Patel

In one of my favorite childhood films, the main character says in a desperate situation, "All one can do is the next right thing." The real ones will recognize this as Anna from Frozen II. These words were taken to heart, but a question arose: What even is the next right thing?

I spent a lot of junior year trying to answer that. Second-guessing every decision, constantly overthinking whether I was on the right track, wishing I had more certainty than high school was ever going to offer. But looking back, the things I stressed over most usually never mattered as much as I thought they would. What I've come to understand is that the next right thing isn't about having the perfect answer. It's about showing up, working hard, and being willing to pursue opportunities that genuinely spark your curiosity, even when there’s uncertainty involved. As long as you're taking things step by step, breaking down every problem and task into small goals, your path will lay itself out. You will end up where you're meant to be.

Before I continue, I want to thank the people who helped me make it here today. To my mom and dad, thank you for your endless love, guidance, and patience. To my brother Rishab, thank you for being my biggest supporter. To my best friends, thank you for putting up with me and my endless rants. To my teachers, especially Dr. O and Ms. Roshkovan, thank you for the pep talks before AP exams and for convincing me that I could handle things I wasn't so sure I could. To Mr. Weiss, thank you for always believing in me, and more specifically, for bearing with me using up all of your printer paper. And to every counselor, administrator, custodian, and staff member who quietly kept this school running, there aren't enough words to express how grateful I am. 

I think we can all agree that our path here wasn't exactly conventional. We've dealt with unknown after unknown. Who would have thought that a transformer would blow out and send us right back into online school? And I don't think any of us expected to spend a Saturday morning taking finals, which should definitely be illegal. And yet, through every one of those moments, we found the next right thing and did it anyway. 

As we move forward, it's easy to feel the weight of not knowing what comes next. Somewhere along the line, we started feeling like we needed to have everything figured out before we were allowed to move at all. We don't. Navigating the future means being comfortable with diving into the unknown. It's something you move through using everything you've already built, both good and bad. And if these past four years have shown us anything, it's that we have more to draw on than we ever thought. So go do the next right thing, and the one after that, and the one after that. To the class of 2026, good luck and congratulations!