When ever I feel down or feel dispirited about something, which is quite often when schooling in uni, I sort take my inspiration and motivation from speeches.
Great speeches have this effect on me, the goose bumps rising feeling that makes you want to go out and do something. Just like the feeling that you get after watching the movie ‘300′, even though it’s your 5th time.
I think making speeches in public is not easy; you more often see people making a fool out of themselves. Either that or their speech is rather forgettable. Giving a meaningful speech and to infuse it with some humour is even harder.
Great speeches have the ability to transport you to another world; one where you are allowed to pursue your dreams, one where all your current problems have disappeared, and one where the choice is ultimately yours. Which is why I kind of loved Steve Job’s “Connecting the Dots” speech.
I keep some sort of a collection of speeches which I think are rather interesting and inspiring and re-read once a while. And I came across a pretty decent speech while reading Mr Wang Says So. A friend of his, Adrian Tan was invited to be the G.O.H at one of NTU’s convocations last week.
A brief excerpt:
Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Pretty interesting? Read the whole speech here.
