You know, I was thinking about this Last Word last week, sitting here in assembly, listening to Thomas’s Last Word and I had no idea what I was going to say to you guys.

NO IDEA!

I started to panic. As I said in my first Last Word, sometimes in life, whether you like it or not, you will be in situations where you are scared and that is completely normal. Fear is a primitive human instinct that alerts us that we are in situations that could potentially adversely affect us and initiates our fight-or-flight reactions. However, sometimes (when you try to use your brain) you over think and this leads you to make regrettable decisions.

Regrets. We all have regrets sometimes. Regretting not doing this, not going there… you are the only person who will ever know what you truly want. Some people may act like they know what you want but they don’t. But I’m not wanting to present a Last Word where I keep ranting on about regrets. Trust me, I’ve been where you guys are and I know how boring the Last Word can get. However, if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt throughout my time at OBHS and the one and maybe the only piece of advice I would like to give you guys is to always have fun and as Eric Peita had said, “always be grateful.”

If you think about it, every day you are the oldest you have been and the youngest you will be. Time is ticking, so do what you want while you can because before you know it you won’t be able to do it.

Now, at the start of the year, I talked about embracing your fear. I don’t how many of you actually saw the video of that Last Word but the basic idea was to step out of your comfort zone. Through various ways, you may or may not have done that this year. You still have time. Either way, it’s fine. At the end of the day, hopefully, it was your choice to do what you did or didn’t do. So the only person you can praise (or blame) is yourself. Brian Banks says “all you can control in your life is how you respond to life.”

So many different things could happen to you and could happen around you during your life and the only thing you can truly control is how you react to it. You can’t control how other people react, just like you can’t control the weather. To be honest, people in general are probably more unpredictable than the weather, and that's coming from someone who lives in Dunedin. I mean, have you ever experienced the weather here? It could be sunny one moment and then completely pouring on you the next, and before you know it, it will start to snow and all in spring too.

So if you want to do something, then do it. Don’t be letting other people's opinions get into your head and hold you back. Don’t worry about what other people think or say. As Sam Gavin had said earlier this year “don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Let’s all do our best for the last week or so we have left seniors, especially Year 13s who will soon be moving onto bigger things.

Now, as with all the Last Words that have been spoken before mine, I will end with a quotation.

This one is from Kate Spade.

“Be happy. Be bright. Be you.”