I'm going to tell you the story of how I butchered my English 102 final speech (this is relevant, believe me).

Let me set the scene for you. I'm a senior, I'm ready to graduate and I'm almost done with a speech I've been working on all semester. For my past presentations, I usually used Powerpoint, like everyone else. This time I decided to be different. I found a really cool presentation website called Prezi and decided to make my presentation on that. Here is where the story takes a turn for the worse.

Everything is going well, and I have a pretty great presentation, tons of note cards and I feel super prepared. My name is called to present, so I step up to the computer to pull up my Prezi. Literally seconds before my speech, I see my slides are out of order, but I didn't have time to fix it, so I decided to work with it (bad mistake).

The speech is flowing and going fine until I get to the first slide that is out of order. I seriously shuffled around my note cards to find the one for that slide for what seemed like days and decided to just wing the rest of the speech based on my presentation. If you know me, you know I had everything planned. Seriously, I had written jokes on those note cards because I cannot improvise.

The rest is a blur, but I know I looked at my best friend (trying her best to give me an encouraging smile in this mess) and literally said aloud, "Wow, I'm bombing this." I said that aloud in the middle of a final speech.

So the point of this horrific story is that today, less than two years later, I can laugh until I cry about this story. It's not because I'm embarrassed, but because it's seriously hilarious. Something that seemed like the most embarrassing thing at the time, brings me joy today.

I'm telling you all of this because "Maddie's English 102 Final" isn't the only struggle I've gone through. I deal with the same struggles all 20-somethings deal with daily. I'm nervous about my future. I'm afraid I'm always making the wrong choice. I'm afraid I should be doing more with my life. I'm afraid, period.

Maybe it's like this for all of us, but I have to reassure myself daily that this isn't my forever situation. I have to think about how in a few years this situation will become a laughable story. This situation that is causing me so much anxiety and stress will bring me laughter and happiness when I think about it in the future.

I think this is an awesome, positive way for us to rethink our current situations. Of course, you should stress about your math test in a week. Of course, you should worry about paying your rent. Of course, you should spend time thinking about your future. I'm not saying you should let go of all your anxiety and stress and just "be happy," because if anyone knows how much easier said than done that is, it's me. I am saying when you're in a situation that makes you feel less than you are, think about the promise of the future.

Just think about standing up in front of basically your whole senior class, while doing basically the biggest presentation of the semester and saying, "Wow, I'm bombing this." Now, think about the beauty in your struggle story.

P.S. I got a B on the project overall because my paper was on point (or the teacher thought I had suffered enough).