Rachel Sebesta, State Vice President Retiring Address
“Limitless”
Sixth row at the Celeste Center. Columbus, Ohio. Lights and cameras. Seems exciting right? But wait, we forgot something… 970 state degree recipients walking across the stage… taking an hour and a half. That’s where I was a month ago, trying and failing to pay attention as they read name after name of people I had never even heard of.
After about 30 minutes of watching state degree recipients walk across the stage, I turned around and began to engage two members sitting in the seventh row. Diana was one of those two members. We talked about FFA and events we’ve both been to, and Diana shared her experiences in taking college classes as a sophomore in high school. She even revealed her excitement with me about starting a vegetable garden for her community as her SAE. Within a short conversation, I had come to know that Diana’s story is complex, and her potential is untapped.
My younger self loved to read. I still do. I gobble up novels, pursue biographies, and spend a significant portion of my free time browsing Wikipedia, just gathering knowledge. In fact, it was no surprise to me that my top Clifton Strength is Input, which manifests in me by the collection of information about literally anything. I can tell all of you about mantis shrimp, wombats, and hermit crabs, but those are stories for another day. But I truly believe my love of reading came from my elementary school librarian, Ms. Bainter.
On my first day of library in Kindergarten, I was so excited to see all the books I had heard my brother talk about when he came home. You see, books aren’t just pages of words to me. There are thousands of worlds to discover, millions of people to meet, and hundreds of ways to learn something new. Library time started off pretty normal, with us sitting on the alphabet rug in a perfect semicircle, listening to one of the librarians read us a picture book. It was a good book, but I was bored and ready for an adventure through the shelves. After what seemed like an eternity, they finally finished, and we were free to explore for the time remaining to us. I jumped up, raced towards the first shelf, and pulled out the first book I saw, only to be disappointed at the cover of “Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” that was staring back at me. I’ve already read this book with my mom during our nightly story time. Maybe the library wasn’t so great after all.
That’s the exact moment Ms. Bainter swooped into my life. She was quick to spot that I was beyond the kindergarten books, and pushed me towards the thicker, more complex picture books with long sentences and big words. And boy, was I ever ready for that challenge. I tore through The Magic Treehouse, burned my way through the Little House on the Prairie series, and devoured Harry Potter all before third grade. I read into the night without my parents knowing because I was so engrossed with the characters who I found bits of myself in. Ms. Bainter and I would always talk about the books when I was done reading and she was always ready with the next recommendation for me. I worked my way through Lemony Snicket, Percy Jackson, and even tried out some nonfiction books for size.
When fourth grade rolled around, Ms. Bainter knew that I was ready to tackle the biggest challenge she could throw at me: the Inheritance Cycle, a four-book series about dragons and fighting against evil. They had technically been removed from the shelves for how hard they were and for containing quite a lot of graphic violence. They sat behind her desk and she would only pull them out for the kids she knew were ready for a challenge. That day, when I dropped off the book I was returning, she called me over, reached up, and handed me this heavy blue book. At that time, it was the thickest book I had ever seen. I was nervous but I knew Ms. Bainter had faith in me, so I was ready to get started.
I have to confess, I hardly slept for about three weeks. That’s how engrossed I was in that book. I skimmed the tops of the clouds while riding a dragon with the main character, practiced magic, and felt his pain, fear, joy, and relief. Ms. Bainter’s belief in myself and her ability to see something in myself that I couldn’t made a world of difference. When I finally finished the entire series, I knew that I could tackle any book put in front of me.
Ms. Bainter saw the value, curiosity, and potential in me and made the decision to nurture it. Because of her time, I became a lifelong learner, reader, and storyteller. Just like Ms. Bainter, it takes each one of us to see the potential in each person we interact with. In our lives, we will meet countless individuals. Through these interactions, we will have an opportunity to see their limitless potential and encourage their pursuit of growth, just like Ms. Bainter did for me. It’s a challenge we must face every day. Each person we meet and interact with changes us in some way, whether that be good or bad. It’s these relationships that make up the world, and maybe how we change is what life is all about.
Think of one person in your life who you know has potential. It might be potential to excel in sports or potential to make an impact on their life by trying something new in FFA. Now, let’s visualize what we might say to that person to encourage them to go the extra mile. The next time you see that person, go ahead and share those words with them.
It’s easier to see potential in people that you already know and have a relationship with, but what about a total stranger? That certainly gets harder. It can start to feel like we’re detectives in a mystery novel, staring blindly through a magnifying lens looking for any sort of clue. After all, they’re just a face we pass on the street. But once we have mastered finding potential in those close to us, we are able to expand our lens to a wider degree and begin to find potential in strangers.
Picture this: it’s a wonderful September day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, K-State campus was bustling with students just starting to get into the groove of things, and I was walking outside of Hale Library having the “worst” day of my life. What about? I honestly don’t remember.
But do remember looking up and seeing other people who seemed like they looked how I felt. But I didn’t reach out to them. In fact, I didn’t talk to many people my first semester at college, much preferring to just walk and think to myself, mostly about concepts presented to me in my favorite class, Cultural Anthropology, which is the study of all humans, at all times, and in all places.
Besides my feelings and the people walking past me, I remember one other thing: the sudden, sinking-feeling-in-your-gut realization that I am not the only person on this Earth.
Obviously, I have gone to school, and I know that there are 7.9 billion other people who share this little blue planet we are standing on that is hurtling through the universe at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour. More specifically, I am talking about the gut-wrenching realization that I am not the only person on Earth and that all of my problems, concerns, joys, and dreams are no greater than anyone else’s. Each of us is the main character in our lives and I am in no way, shape, or form better than the person who just whizzed past me on a link scooter. We are all struggling and at times it may feel like nobody cares about the person’s struggle right next to them.
It was such a humbling experience that I almost had to stop and sit down right there on the sidewalk.
But in the same sense that we all face our own struggles, there’s an element of empathy and connection in knowing that we’re not alone. We all share in our ownership of problems, concerns, joys, and dreams because THAT is what makes us human. We’re complex, unique, full of limitless potential, and we’re not alone.
I dare you to look to find the potential in others. Maybe it’s choosing to look past a person’s face, clothes, and items in their cart at the grocery store and imagine their life, just as complex and messy as your own. Maybe it’s considering how what you say might affect the person standing next to you. Or maybe it’s celebrating each small accomplishment around you with the same passion as you celebrate the big ones. There are hundreds of thousands of ways to look deeper at those around us; the challenge is to find the one that works best for you.
Our entire lives, we have had people who found the potential in us. While we might not have noticed it at the time, their belief made a world of difference, and when we take a second to seek out the potential in those closest to us, we get to pass along the joy to others that so many before poured into us. If we can live in this mindset(?) we begin to see the drops of potential in everyone we meet from those just down the road to those halfway across the world. Those drops can combine into trickles, which join into streams, which can ultimately flood the world with possibilities. And with each new person we meet and every new potential we uncover, we begin to feel like we’re just a little. less. alone. The potential we have before us is great, the potential of others is waiting to be unearthed, and the only question is how far can our oceans of potential reach? That’s the thing about potential – it’s limitless!