A perfect day to my honourable judges, respected timekeepers, teachers and fellow friends!

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let's play a little game before I begin, to spice things up. Okay, here we go. Put a finger
down if you never voice your true thoughts on something because you are afraid they might
treat you differently. Put a finger down if you seek constant reassurance, validation, or
positive feedback from others. Put a finger down if you overachieve in an attempt to garner
praise from others.

If you put more than a finger down, my friends, we have found a problem. Did you notice the
similarity between all those statements? Yes, they’re all based on external approval. All the
statements above show just how desperate we are to seek validation from others. To not
place importance on our approval, but that of others. But fear not, as you, I and quite the
amount of people out there suffer from this. If you haven’t already figured it out, I stand
before you, here, to talk about needing validation from others..

"Don't let the noise of other opinions drown out your own inner voice." This quote by Steve
Jobs quite literally jolted me awake from my downward spiral of constantly craving the
opinions and approval of an outsider. More than often we find ourselves needing our
decisions to be approved by others. We, in desperate pursuit of validation from external
sources, forget that we ourselves can validate our opinions too. We fail to remember that of
all approval there is, our own is by far the most sincere and powerful.

Now, to make you feel less alone about this situation, I’d like to share my very own
experience of this nagging issue. This issue probably dates back to the early years of my
secondary school. Where I was a quiet, girl who was facing an identity crisis. This was the
period where I felt so lost like I had no purpose in life whilst everyone had their lives figured
out. This thinking made me a vulnerable prey to start doing the things that were externally
approved to better find my position in the school community.

However, as time progressed, I started forgetting the presence of my inner voice, or in other
words, my personal opinions and instead heavily depended on other people's views. A very
recent example is, the fact that I started rethinking my decision to choose the science stream
because my peers' decided to choose the computer science stream. It’s astonishing
because, up until that day, I was very confident in my choice of the science stream! I then
started convincing myself that my friends were, in fact making the right decision and if I do
end up choosing the science stream, I may regret it.

After that school day, I went home and reflected on my thoughts in my journal. As I was
reflecting, I felt a twinge of embarrassment because I did not realise just how much other
people’s choices, opinions, and points of view influenced my life. So the next day, I woke up,
energised, and promised myself to be more alert towards my opinions. I strictly told myself
that my opinions have always been worthy enough to be considered when I make a
decision. I also stuck quotes about validating my own opinions, that I so conveniently found
on Pinterest. This helped to remind the promise I made to myself as I saw those quotes all
around my room. I hear you, and yes, it is hard to break years of habit, but hey, you should
pat yourself on the back for not relapsing into your dreadful and old habits. You’re making an
effort to be more alert to your opinions than before!

To sum up this speech, I’d like to be the one to tell you that your opinion matters. It always
has and always will. And here’s your reminder that it’s okay to ask for opinions from the
people you trust when you need help. But always, always ensure that the decision is yours.
Truly yours.

Thank you!