We Ourselves Are to Blame
INTRODUCTION
I would like to start my speech with a question. Why are there more poor people than rich people? Why are there more unsuccessful people than successful ones? Why are there more unhappy people than happy ones? Have you ever thought about it? Why do children who struggle immensely and go hungry for days often become the
most generous and crisis-resistant rich people in the future, while the children of wealthy parents who have every condition and every wish granted either fail to become rich, or if they do, become miserly, greedy, and see their wealth go bankrupt in a very short time?
MAIN BODY
Imagine a newborn baby; the heart and mind of a newborn baby are like a blank sheet of paper. How to decorate it depends on the baby’s parents. There is at least one small child in each of your homes. Have you ever watched them? Even if there is a big problem or many shortcomings at home, that little child continues to play happily. They are only interested in being happy, playing, and laughing, right? But we adults, whenever we have a problem, we keep brooding over it, yet we never think about why that problem was given to us or what good things lie behind it. Let’s greet those problems with a smile, just like children do.
Have you ever tested what children do when their toys get lost? Why am I saying this? Toys are a part of children’s lives, just like the problems that trouble us. But when their toy is lost, they search for it, cry, and if they still cannot find it, they move on and make themselves happy by playing with other things. We adults cannot do that.
Actually, the fault does not lie with us, but with our parents who taught us to live this way—though I do not mean to blame them with this. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I mean that we should not teach such a lifestyle to newborns. When a problem comes to our children, we must teach them to face it with a smile, and when defeat comes, to view it not as a defeat, but as a tool that makes us even stronger.
Instead of whispering “you cannot do it” into their minds, we should actually instill the words “you are capable of anything.” We must not kill the innocence of their childhood, but let them grow and thrive. When problems arise, we must teach them not to feel distressed, but how to emerge stronger from that problem. The appearance of
a problem in your life does not mean plunging into sorrow and grief.
We must teach them to accept it as meaning “you are strong, do not stop striving.” It is not all about the problem itself, but how we accept it and how we act. I read in a book recently about its main character, an elderly person who taught at a large university. He contracted an illness that made it difficult for him to walk, causing him to fall down while walking. Yet, even if it meant relying on a cane, he would go for walks, and on his way out, he attended swimming every day. Even when the illness worsened to the point where he could no longer take off his clothes and needed a servant to help, he would still go swimming, and alongside these hardships, he never stopped teaching at the university. Perhaps you think he was forced to do so—no, he was not forced, but he did it because he refused to stay inactive in one place and live in sorrow, feeling depressed just because he was sick.
CONCLUSION
The main purpose and core message of my words is that our unending problems, our inability to become rich despite trying, our illnesses—in short, all kinds of problems—are perceived as if they will never pass or go away.
How our lives turn out depends on ourselves and how we accept our lives. In reality, we ourselves are to blame for all our problems
