Toastmaster First Project - Ice Breaker

Just checked that I've not published my first speech of Toastmaster here.

So here it is

I’ll start with a question – How many of you have actually selected the carrier you’re into, the institute from where you have passed.

Don’t you wonder, the important decisions that shape our life are taken without any serious reflection just by going with the trends.

Mr.  Toastmaster, fellow members and dear guests.

The topic of my speech is Y2K, which is an acronym for year 2000, the year in which I was compelled to take a major decision of my life.

The major part of my life is spent in Chandigarh, where we settled in after my father retired from army. Somehow it’s planned architecture suites my father who could not shed that basic disciplined demeanor of his army life.

It’s a city where I did most of my schooling, my college education and my job also.

So in year 2000 I completed my higher secondary, Up to so far everything was okay. I selected Non Medical after metric because that’s what good studious students are expected to do, isn’t it; to become doctors or engineers.

It was very clear that two years before to me that I have to appear in competitive exams after my 10+2 but somehow I did nothing about it unlike some of my classmates who were ready with their plans of shifting to Kota as its hub of coaching centers and enrolling to another school where you can bunk classes to attend coaching.

I do attend coaching classes and appeared in all the exams, Harsh reality fell on the day of declaration of result when I found that I’m in front of may-be tens of thousands of students but more importantly and what matters most also , was behind those elusive one thousand applicants who can dream of making in institutions of their choice

All my hopes were clinging to one last result that was yet to come. Standing in queue in that room waiting for my result , those 2 hrs seems like 2 years and after that I get that wretched piece of paper telling that my rank is 800 odd something in short NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Just at the gate of that room, a man was selling the pamphlets of crash course for a institute called Indo Swiss Training Centre.

I swear that I’ve never heard of it before; but as I was not at all willing to go home and face my parents so instead I went to the institute to collect the brochure. There was a bunch of students just standing near the counter and how worse a day can be I find myself right in a ragging session.

Luckily some students were sensible enough to understand my situation, at that unlikeliest of places I got good advice that helps me to decide my future course of action.

Saying that I made a choice would be a false statement because I really don’t have much options, I was not at all willing to explore options like taking a paid seat or going in some obscure college in some remote part or to drop one year and give another try to same exams.

I set a goal to clear the entrance exams and get into that institute and achieved it. After all those years its very hard for me to imagine my life without those teachers and those classmates.

A lot of my friends pursued other options and after more a decade it’s a mixed results but I never regret my decision.

I’m not a philosopher but there are two learning that stays with me after all this.

One No such decision can ever be wrong which is taken with conviction and followed with perseverance

And for second I’ll quote zig ziglar as

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become after achieving your goals