Yesterday was the turning point of my life. Me and a few other councillors were selected by Mr Dinesh and Ms Tay to go to a National Young Leaders Day 2008 @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic from 10am-4pm seminar. At first I was very lazy to go and I was swearing and swearing how unlucky I could’ve been to be selected to go for this event that lasts for 6hours! I had no choice because I had already pay for the price of ticket that was originally at $32 but we only had to pay $10. I wasn’t really looking forward to it and I thought it would be just some boring talks as though in a conference. Well actually it is a conference. Haha ok fine whatever. However, after attending this conference a very special man had changed my life forever. Not just mine but the others as well and Im greatly thankful to the teachers who have selected me to go for this event. Thank you so much. So here’s the story I’d like to share with all of you.

Mr Nick Vujicic is an international motivational speaker and he is the founder of www.lifewithoutlimbs.com and he is only 25years old however he has a unique ability to challenge adults and their perspectives. He encourages his audiences to dream big and inspires them to improve their own attitude regarding the obstacles in their lives. When he was 24, he has accomplished a double degree in accounting and financial planning. However he is a man with no arms and no legs at all. You search for his videos at www.attitudeisaltitude.com or at youtube. I think that Nick has a tremendous gift in captivating people using his vibrant sense of humour and a special charisma. I am really lucky to be able to hear his talk!

On that day, we had 4motivational speakers and Mr Nick Vujicic was the last to speak. He may be the last to speak but his talk was the very best and very touching.He started off with hello hello and as he had no arms and legs,the crew members had to put him on 2desks so that everyone in the auditorium could see him.He really had no arms and legs however there this little foot he had on one side of his half-leg with only 2 cute toes.He would slap his toes on the table and said hellohello! The whole auditorium was very quiet as though pitying him. I mean how could anyone crippled like that be able to speak in a crowd of 1200 people? But after he gave his speech I realise that we should be the ones to pity ourselves instead of him and Im really ashamed of myself.

Nick talked about courage and this was what he said. “Courage is doing something when you are afraid of doing it and never let fear to paralyse your future.”  Its really a powerful phrase. Yes i shall never again let fear to destroy my future and spoil my dreams. Thank you Nick, for making me realise that.

His another strong sentence were “You can never know what you can achieve unless you try.Remeber obstacles equals to opportunities.” Which is totally true. The saying “failure is the mother to success” may sound insane but its true. However if we think about it again, if we fail in doing something in life we must get up again and get hold of ourselves and do it again till we succeed.When we fail we must not feel demoralised, instead we must feel even more spirited to do better. People makes mistakes so why can’t we forgive ourselves? Shouldn’t we be giving ourselves another chance to do better?

I was really ashamed of myself when he told the crowd in the auditorium in a loud way, “If a man like me with no arms and legs could succeed, why can’t you people with arms and legs succeed?” It really struck upon me that I have been wasting my 14years of life and its time to wake up and at that point I already wanted to cry.

Nick continued with his loud voice. “Many of us humans complains about every single thing we aren’t happy with and people gets depressed and would resort to slashing on the wrist and suicide and all. But believe me nothing of the pain you guys are going through is bigger than me. When I was 6, 12 of my schoolmates teased me. They were really harsh but I just kept quiet and ignored,though I must say that it really wasn’t easy to put a deaf ear to it. Till today I could still remeber what they said.”

Nick stopped talking, took a deep breathe and continued. At this point I was already crying.The first to cry I think. This were what his evil mates said. “Hey Nick, forget about schooling. How can you write if you’ve got no hands? Haha! Give up on your life man. You can’t even touch a girl. What’s the use of having a wife one day when you can’t even hold her hands? What’s the use of being a father someday when you can’t even carry your child in your arms?Hahahahaha!”

OhMyGod im telling you guys, why do evil people like this still exists in this world. It must’ve been terrible for Nick to go through all this and yep, he is indeed courageous. Oh and if you are reading this and you are one of the people who teases others let me tell you straight that I can tell you are having bad times at home. Nick says that bullies usually come from unhappy families and to vent out their anger, they bully others but deep inside them they are lonely,forlorn and hurt.

I am truly ashame of those people who are lifeless who do sex to be cool, who drinks to be cool, who smokes to be cool, who bullies to be cool, who vulgars around to be cool when they are all not.

One word to describe this type of people like what Nick has said is “COWARD”. Why coward? It is because they are afraid of losing out, and are willing to do anything so that their friends would think they are cool and all. Well hello, true friend will not ask you to do something bad. A true friend will not destroy your future. Nothing is cool in this world. You want to be really cool? Then be who you really are and that good thing about you will outshine your coolness. You get me?

Okay thats roughly what he was talking about and there was more actually. Then after his speech there was a question and answer session. A malay girl  did not give a question nor an answer, but she shared with us about her this was what she said.

“Hi Nick” (the girl)

“Hey I love you” (Nick)

“I love you too.Oh My Gosh im crying! Okay i’ve got a fibroid growing in my stomach near my ovary and its serious and I have to undergo an operation soon.But I don’t want my parents to worry. My condition continues to deteriorate because I’ve never taken any medication before because just one bottle of the medicine costs $245.You see, I don’t come from a well to do family.Furthermore the operation is a 50-50 risk.I still don’t want to die.(sobbing and stopped to talk)I still don’t want to die (x2) Im still young,I want to live,I want to be successful.What can I do?” Oh my god when she said “i dont want to die” i was already praying to God to let her live longer and crying at the same time !! May God Bless Her (Amin) Haha I was already crying as though someone had died. In fact many people were crying.I must say it was very courageous of her to say that.Then Nick said

”Come down here now and give me a hug.”

And they hug for so long and Nick mumbled something to her which the audience cant hear.Its like a movie and like watching a Korean drama, I was crying non-stop.Nick volunteered to pay for her 1st two bottles of medicine and she was really touched and Nick told her to meet her afterwards.Then Nick told us that he would be ant Ngee Ann’s foyer after the whole seminar and he would be a hugging machine there where we could all hug him.

So we the councillors rushed to the foyer at the end of it and crowded around with some other councillors from other schools. Nick then shouted he’d only have 10mins to be a hugging machine and we must line up. Haha so guess what? We all joined the queue immediately and the line was super long luckily we were not one of the last we were somewhere near the front row.The queue was forming like an ‘S’ shape plus ‘L’ shape that there;s hardly room to move.But anyway I managed to hugged him and whispered thank you so much to him and he said your welcome.Haha but before the hug one of my friend Lucas, was like “Eh susu,later I hug him help me take my photo” and passed me his phone and I was like “okay ah but later i hug him must take my photo too” and i passed him my phone.I was the 1st to hug before him and he did snap but was way too blur cos it happened to fast.And when he hugged Nick,I forgot to snap his because it was too fast and I was crying,busy wiping my tears.Haha then me and Lucas laughed like crazy and went off to our bus.

In the bus back to school, Mr Dinesh wants us to write up a proposal for him on what we learned today and must be at least 150words and is to be mailed to him latest by tommorrow morning.Everyone was like swearing but deep in my heart i was like yays! (100x) I’ve got so many things to say. While my other friends wrote only 1paragraph I wrote 2pages and have already sent it to him yesterday night itself and I was like typing at the end,”Dear Mr Dinesh,sorry if i’ve wrote too much but I think I could’ve added more.Pls take some time off reading it! ((:”

Then today,when I opened my mail, surprisingly he replied, and he said, “Hey Suhaidah,its amazing to know that you’ve written alot. When it comes from the heart, it would pour out like water. I’ll forward this to Ms Tay and Mr Aw Yong and see what it transpires”

I was like oh my god. Then I told my mum and she told me to print a copy as she wanted to know dearly what I’ve wrote.Then she probably told me this,because there was a point where I wrote this.

“My greatest wish after attending this is that I hope I could be able to share this wonderful experience not just with the other student councillors in Canberra Secondary School, but also with the other students in our school.Furthermore I think not just student councillors should deserve to to an event like this but also the other students in our school.Especially those in the Normal steams because who knows they are demoralised or something,and hopefully by attending a motivational talk like this could motivate them to do better,and I hope that we could go to this seminar again next year together but not as student councillors but as a school because everyone deserves a chance and everyone deserves to be a leader.”

Haha that was my last paragraph in my reflections.So you could imagine how many paragraphs I wrote if one paragraph is that long.So thats it for today! I shall end of by saying “Believe in what you do and only then can you transmit what you believe to others.Hang On and dont give up.Live your life with a purpose and I love you all regardless of who you are!”

Nick, wherever you are, thanks because I’ve discovered a brand new me.I’ve decided to be a optimistic person from now onwards. You are my inspiration to do better for my O-Levels in 2years to come.Thanks and now, I can think beyond now and people out there, “NEVER LET FEAR TO PARALYSE YOUR FUTURE!” “EVERYONE IS LEADER AND YOU’D BETTER TAKE GOOD CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE!”