You have one job - stay alive - International Speech Contest TCA 2023 3rd place or second runner up
You have one job - stay alive? Put your hand up if you are over five years old. That is most of you. How many of you have had a birthday in the last year, the last 12 months. Most of you.
Happy Birthday! (Holds up happy birthday.)
You have already outlived a large number of people who were born the year you were born. When I went to visit my dearly beloved departed uncle in hospital, he was sitting up in bed reading obituaries. I thought that was a bit scary. I asked him why. He said, with a grin, 'I want to see who I have outlived'.
Every birthday is an achievement, however old you are. Open your newspaper and every day you will read about people who took unnecessary risks. Women who stayed with violent husbands. Against everybody else's advice. People who drove cars over a hundred miles an hour. They all had a choice and, should have taken the life affirming choice, in the opinion of me, and especially others in the emergency services, who risked their own lives trying to save those who should have saved themselves.
I believe most of my friends, and those of you who are here, don't fall into that category. We all have a reason for staying alive and taking extra care.
I am in my seventies. I read about a man who said that when he was my age, he would commit suicide because he did not want to be in poor health and a burden.
I disagree. I spent five years of my life looking after my father who was widowed in his eighties.
Are you convinced, as I am, that it is our duty to take care of yourself, your children and parents, and grandparents, and if you are not busy with them, or even if you are, of every other stranger your meet, including fellow toastmasters.
Two of my friends have been members of the Samaritans in the UK, who listen, and persuade people not to commit suicide.
When you listen to Icebreakers, you often hear heartbreaking stories and challenges. At one of my Toastmasters clubs, a new member committed suicide after his first speech. He told a dreadful story about his family being massacred and crossing the world to get to Britain and how he was now studying and looking for a job. He got the sympathy vote. We were all in tears at the end of his speech. His evaluator said it was a wonderful moving speech.
Nobody said, you have left everybody else and yourself very sad. Let me retell this story to end on a happy note, with a quotation which you can hold onto, the number of a friend you can call when you are feeling sad or want a cheer-up.
It's too late for him. You don't often hear about the success stories, of people who were saved. My belief is that every speech should have a happy ending.
Every birthday is a celebration. Another year when, despite all the struggles and setbacks, you kept going. People smile in birthday pictures.
Smile!
(Holds up smiley face.)
I have recently acquired a new grandchild. She smiles and laughs a lot, as do most children. Stanford University Medical School, California, USA, is one of many sources of studies on smiling. Several studies show that children smile more than adults. People smile more in groups than when alone.
(Thailand, called the land of smiles, has names for 13 types of smile, all of which I recognized, ranging from smiles of welcome, disbelief, amazement, pride.
Now I have two reasons to stay alive. Firstly, my son wanted to move out of a flat into a house with a garden so she could play outdoors. I gave the married couple a large sum of money. If I don't live for seven years, the UK government will take that money back in inheritance tax and the parents might have to sell their house to pay off the tax. Every birthday I have is a step towards this goal of financial security.
Secondly, on a happier note, I want to be at her wedding, firstly for her sake and secondly so I can enjoy it. For the next eighteen years, every birthday is a step towards this goal.
What are your reasons to keep going? I have a grandchild. It is easy to make her smile and laugh. I just wave and smile and say smile. You can do it to adults too. Please wave at me and the camera. And smile. See how easy it is. I made you smile. You smiled to keep me happy. Please have a happy year. Keep everybody around you happy. You have one job, to survive.
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Overmatter
I was asked to give an evaluation of an Icebreaker speech at a new Toastmasters club for a huge, worldwide company on a remote industrial estate.
The speaker told us, in broken English, how had no work in his country so he had come to Singapore to earn money to support his widowed mother. He arrived speaking no English and was lonely and struggled to communicate and had no friends. He was homesick and wanted to go home and see his mother. He ate tiny amounts and had saved up and he now had enough money to go home but his mother had just died so he had nothing to go home to. The speaker broke off, sobbing. I was in tears. So was everybody.
I asked the senior Toastmaster who had invited me if she could give the evaluation instead. She swapped with me, giving me the language evaluation role.
I wondered what she could possibly say.
She was wonderful. She praised his speech. She said,
'Every toastmasters wants to have the power to make people laugh or cry and many have struggled for years and still could not do it but our speaker had achieved that in his very first speech. His English acquired in 3 months was impressive - and he had got his message and story across clearly. I see a bright future for him as an eloquent speaker. A personal story was always the most effective. Now the club had started he had made us all feel we knew him well and cared about him so he had a room full of friends and a Toastmasters family to see every week. I and everybody here will support our beloved speaker in his success in improving his English and developing his speaking to even greater heights. He deserves a standing ovation for his eloquence. Please congratulate him.'
She stood up, led the clapping and ran forward to shake his hand. The new President of the club, the man's boss, also ran forward to shake the speaker's hand, and the evaluator's hand. Everybody ran forward to shake the speakers's hand, and the evaluator's hands. Then all the staff shook hands with us visitors.
I was astonished at her eloquence and enthusiasm. The speaker was transformed. He now looked quite cheerful. And so did everybody else. They all shook hands with the speaker, and the evaluator and congratulated both of them.
Afterwards, I asked her, 'Are you a counsellor?'
'No.'
'Where did you learn to speak so positively?'
She smiled, as if both revealing a secret, and saying the obvious, 'At Toastmasters!'
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