Good afternoon - honoured judges, esteemed teachers, and dear friends. I am Saxicola rubetra, from Class 12 Science, and having been offered this platform, I would like to express my views about the importance of being nice to people. It may seem to be an unusual topic, but when I finish, I think you’ll agree that it is a subject highly relevant to today’s teenagers.
Hundreds of books have been written about social graces, etiquette and formal manners, ranging from fifty-page self help books of the one-minute variety, to sturdy volumes that include detailed histories of manners and etiquette. Formal manners might require help from a book, but what I wish to talk about is our basic attitude and behaviour towards our friends, family and colleagues in day to day life. That is something that cannot be learnt by reading any number of books. It has to come from within.
Parents tell children when they are little, that when someone gives them something, they should say thank you; if they do something wrong, they should say I am sorry; if they ask for something, they should say please. Children mechanically obey these instructions, without really understanding the meaning behind it all. That understanding comes only when they grow older and more mature. Having understood that thanking or apologizing is an expression of gratitude or regret, as the case may be, the sincerity of that expression should increase. On the contrary, we find that basically, as students grow older, they grow ruder.
Nobody really thinks about this at all. The case could be as simple as borrowing a pencil. When we were younger, we would go to a friend, who we definitely knew had one and ask very politely, please, may I have that. Nowadays, the situation is something like this. You need a pencil, you see one lying around in a pencil case, you don’t know who it belongs to; you pick it up and use it. How many would bother to put it back where it was taken from? Very few indeed. In a lot of cases the pencil in question is just thrown around somewhere and the owner is left to find it missing and then look for it. A pencil may not cost much, which is why people don’t bother too much. But this attitude of not caring for the fact that it does belong to someone else shows how unconcerned, how disrespectful we have become. We are very fastidious when it comes to our own stuff and very casual when it comes to other people’s things.
Our basic behaviour is what others judge us upon. The way we speak and act leads people to form their opinions of what we are, and what they can expect from us. People go to a lot of trouble to make a good first impression on new acquaintances. It might help to some extent, but how long does one go on making a pretence? If one is not basically nice by nature, the truth comes to the surface sooner or later. In your own friends’ circle you will notice, that when in trouble you tend to approach a few particular people more than others. And those particular people are much nicer in their general behaviour than the ones whom you don’t go to.
A self evaluation will show us how shockingly rude we have become. We take everyone and everything for granted. We are not bothered about misusing other people’s property. We do not care about being disrespectful to our elders. We say inappropriate things, which can really offend other people. We take a sadist pleasure in seeing other people squirm with embarrassment or humiliation. The worst is when we try to justify our misbehaviour quoting the other person’s conduct as a precedent.
Being nice shows consideration for other people. It shows that you are interested in creating harmony in society. It doesn’t really take a huge load of effort to be nice. It only needs a little change in attitude. That isn’t asking for too much, is it? If we were all a bit nicer to each other, the world could be a much better place for all of us to live in.
Thanks.
I remember this occasion in my last year in school, when we had this elocution competition, and all of us high school people had to be kicked by our teachers into participating, since we were too lazy to take the initiative ourselves. I was one of those kicked into it. And I didn't get past the preliminary round into the final on-stage round. But my teacher liked the prelim round speech I gave in class and she had me prepare it and speak it on stage anyway, as a guest speaker.
And that occasion was memorable. I'm a stage fright kind of person, and I usually go bonkers at the prospect of a public performance in front of an audience. And here I was, in front of three hundred people for the first time in my life. And it was great. I didn't fumble or stammer or forget anything of what I wanted to say. The feeling I had was beyond exhilaration. It was the feeling of triumph, over my own weakness, the joy that I had surmounted, for once at least, a mountain I always dreaded having to climb. It was just that: triumph.
