The Choice

[This was part of the Toastmasters speech (Project 3) that I delivered on 10th Jan 2015]

What a wonderful evening it is! Winters have started in Pune and climate has never been so pleasant before, an ideal time to go out for dinner with your family or for a movie with your friend or for a date with your girl friend. But, you decided to come to the Toastmasters instead. You made a choice.

Toastmaster of the day, President, fellow toastmasters and dear guests.

We made choice of our careers, we made a choice of our life partners and we made a choice of the clothes that we are wearing now. Infact we start making choice right from the time we wake up in the morning. When the alarm rings, we make a choice whether to get up or to snooze. When we go the the Office we make a choice whether to be more our day productive or to wile away our time just to receive monthly salary. Once we are back from Office we make a choice to spend quality time with our loved ones or sit in front of a TV for hours together. If I were to define life, I would call life as a collection of choices. Today is because of the choice we made yesterday and tomorrow will be because of the choice we make today.

Do you remember how we dreamt as a child? When we watched cricket, we wanted to become a cricketer. When we watched plane flying, we wanted to become a pilot, when we went to the doctor, we too wanted to become a doctor. Life was so full of choices, there was no limit. So, what went wrong as we grew up?

We stopped making choice, we stopped making choice of dreaming, we stopped making a choice of never giving up because we learnt a painful truth that failing to realize our dream hurts. We encountered critics who crushed our dreams. We meekly surrendered and accepted the defeat rather than fighting.

Do you remember when we were offered our first job, we would have dreamt of becoming a CEO one day, sitting in his chair, leading like him and talking like him but as time passed by we lost all our hopes and dreams. As we progressed in our career, we kept dropping our dreams one by one and became like a ship traveling aimlessly drifting without any direction. Today if you ask many of the professionals what they want to do in next three years, trust me they have no idea. Forget next three years,ask them what they want to do next three months and still they have no idea. When you ask them 'how is life'? They say, “It's going on, not too bad or terrible”. We are suppose to have an amazing life, we are supposed to have control over our life. We should be saying 'Life is fabulous, life is amazing'. The choice is yours.

Ladies and Gentleman, difficult times are there to make or break us and the choice is yours. Remember raw gold is beaten up several times and put through high temperatures before turning into a beautiful ornament. When you encounter critics wanting to crush your dreams, pay no heed, do not stop dreaming. When you are going through difficult times do not give up. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. The choice is yours.

Now, let me take you through the lives of two extraordinary gentleman. First is that of the former President of United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. He was born into poverty and he faced multiple defeats throughout his life. He lost job in 1832 and was defeated for state legislature, had a nervous breakdown in 1836. In 1838, he was defeated for speaker. 1843 he was defeated for nomination for congress. He was defeated for US senate in 1854 and defeated for nomination of vice president in 1856. He was again defeated for US senate in 1858. In 1860, he was elected as the President of United States of America, the most powerful position on Earth. Because he made a choice.

The next story is that of Sachin Tendulkar. In 1999, he had a back injury. In 2001, a toe injury. In 2002, hamstring injury. In 2003 ankle injury. In 2004, tennis elbow injury for which he had to undergo a surgery. In 2006, a shoulder injury. These injuries prevented him from playing his favorite shots and the bowlers tried to make best use of these weaknesses by bowling in those areas where he was not comfortable. Do you know what Sachin did? He invented new shots to encounter the attack and left the bowlers frustrated. He broke almost every record in the history of Cricket and went on to win world cup for India. Because, he made a Choice.

What do you think made Sachin and Abraham Lincoln suceed inspite of all the challenges they faced in life? They made a choice. They made a choice of never to stop dreaming. They made a choice of never to give up.Ladies and Gentleman, tomorrow when you encounter a critic or when the alarm rings in the morning, remember, "the Choice is yours".