SPEECH: “Your Life is Beautiful! – be grateful.

“I am fine. No, that was an understatement. Actually I am feeling phenomenal good. Every
day I can decide on how to spend my time, completely free without restrictions. The water
I’m drinking is extraordinary clean and even more important free of germs, bacteria and
pathogens. Also, don’t have to worry where to get my food for the next day. My civil rights
are being protected by a state that allows me to express my opinion (freedom of speech)
without having to fear prosecution. Our children are rising up without war and famines and
have the chance to get an excellent education.”

Madam Allizah, our English for Effective Communication lecturer and my fellow
classmates. I would like to wish everyone a great enjoyable day ahead. Don’t you feel
grateful as you open your eyes this morning and you still can see the smile of your
roommate? Don’t you feel grateful as you still can smell the fragrance smell of milo while you
were having you simple yet enjoyable breakfast this morning? L to the I to the F to the E =
LIFE. Happiness, sorrow, victory, defeat, day-night are the two sides of the coin. Similarly life
is full of moments of joy, pleasure, success and comfort punctuated by misery, defeat,
failures and problems. There is no human being on Earth, strong, powerful, wise or rich, who
has not experienced, struggle, suffering or failure. So today, I’m sharing with you this simple
yet meaningful topic called “Your Life is Beautiful! – be grateful.”

Every day we are blessed with so many things that happen, starting with the fact that
we wake up in the morning to another day ahead. And each day, every single one of us has
something to be grateful for. Sometimes these things are big, such as getting a wonderful
job offer, sometimes they are small, such as the fact that the baby slept through the night.
But the more we focus on what we have to be grateful for in our lives, the easier it will be to
deal with the challenges and tests that we may face as well.

“Your Life is Beautiful! – be grateful.” But are we aware of these facts? Not really,
instead of being grateful most of us don’t even realise how amazing our lives are. People
lose the appreciation of their beautiful lives while concentrating on problems and being
pessimistic about their current “terrible situation”. We consider thousands of things in our
lives for granted, because it’s totally normal for us, like being able to have a shower, or to
have food on our tables, day after day. Each of us takes a shower once or twice a day, but
for an African that is living with his tribe in the desert such a waste of water for hygienic
purposes would be absolutely fatal. Furthermore, the vast majority of us does not have to
worry on whether they are going to have something to eat for the next day, as our main
trouble is on what to eat the next day – something that might be a pure luxury for someone
living in an area where there is limited resources of food.

Have you ever noticed the fact that slum dwellers in third world countries are often
even happier as thousands of residents in our civilization, even though to the fact that they
lack so many things from food to – pure luxury articles like a TV – that we consider to be
ordinary? Could it be that these people appreciate their lives a lot more, due to the fact of not
being able to know whether they are able to enjoy the next day? Perhaps they don’t even
focus on material things or tangibles like money instead they enjoy the time with their family
and esteem social values like deep friendships by far more than we do? In your opinion?
Maybe it is because of our current life and because we are living in a quite rich country like
Malaysia. Here, we never get worried about food, water, transport, shelter and so on.
Everything is provided both by our parents and by the government. Compare to those who
are living in Africa, they don’t even have a proper meal. They don’t even have proper clean
water to drink from since in their land is so try where rain would sometimes will come down
once a month. Just imagine how difficult their life must be.

Dear friend, please think a bit about your own life! Instead of constantly dealing with the
negative aspects in our lives, we should make ourselves conscious that we have a great
chance given and that we can take every step necessary to make our lives even more
beautiful. If we risk an even closer look onto our lives we might even notice that it is already
really amazing. It just depends on our mind sets and our point of view. Don’t waste your time
trying to find evidences why especially your life is so hard, instead appreciate things in life
you already achieved and even more important: esteem these things that are not taken for
granted for residents of poorer countries.