Saturday, April 9, 2011

My Second Speech......Have a blessed, garbage-free life!

I thought of sharing my second speech at Toasmasters. Hope you like it....Here it goes....

OPENING
Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we do?
Husband: Sure darling, let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.

Toastmaster of the day, fellow toastmasters, distinguished guests…..Good evening….

BODY
That may perhaps sound like a joke but in sad reality it reflects the state of the institution of marriage today. Divorce statistics from around the world reveal that divorce is on the rise. And, India is no exception. A few years back, a divorce court in India looked like a haunted building. Now, it is one of the busiest buildings in any Indian city. Thanks to our modern India for having become the Outsourcing Hub of the world. There has been tremendous pressure on marriages in past few decades due to globalization that has induced foreign ideas across conservative cultures. Exposure to western culture triggers the human desire to explore the materialistic world. This leads to deterioration of value systems and cultures that were followed for thousands of years. And, then, the problem starts. In a nutshell, the environment that we live in creates those pressures and we gladly carry those bad energies with us home.

So, what do we do in such situations? Have we taken a moment to think about corrective steps when we lose our temper at home? Fellow Toastmasters, I would like to share a story with you today that made a radical impact on my perception of this troubled world. The name of the story is “The Law of the Garbage Truck”.

One day a man hopped in a taxi to get to the airport. The driver was driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of the taxi. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the black car whipped his head around and started yelling at the taxi driver. The man was infuriated. But the taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And, I mean, he was really friendly. The man was perplexed and asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when the taxi driver taught him a valuable lesson, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.

CONCLUSION
Fellow Toastmasters, today, people start the day by pointing a majestic finger….using the French vocabulary ….honking as an act of road rage…..ignoring you as you wave at them bombarding you with venomous email or morphed mms ….

If that sounds like a morning routine around the world, how much of a culprit are we in this? Actually, most of us are no less competitive. Even if it is our own fault, we have our own set of defensive-vocabulary-kits and tactics to pay such punks back. We would find an excuse for the day to be grumpy and generously share the irritation to anyone who dares to come in our way. And, nothing makes us happier than seeing those punks getting annoyed. And when we get married, we allow this to percolate into our married lives.

MESSAGE
Fellow Toastmasters, let us change……let us be like the TAXI DRIVER….let us be wise and say, “No”, to garbage. Let us not be like the Garbage truck and make sure that we don’t carry garbage and spread it to other people because successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets,
So ... Love the people who treat you right.
Pray for the ones who don't.
Life is ten percent “what you make it” and ninety percent “how you take it! “