Mr. or (Madam) Toastmaster,
Fellow members and guest, as you know, the title of my speech is re-invent yourself. In this speech, I will share you one of my personal struggles and how did I circumvent my struggle to achieve success.
I born in small town in a middle-class family in Bangladesh. With my mom, dad, and brother I had a wonderful life. However, my Dad had to move a lot because of the job, and each and every time we also moved with him as my mom thought he is the best person who could teach us well. Being educated is a big deal in the middle-class family in my country. Most of the people think that your kid should be an engineer or a doctor. Even though I am going to finish my PhD my mom still regrets sometimes that I am not going to be an engineer after all.
During my school years (first 17 years), I had the pleasure to stay with my parents. It was less stressful because my parents used to take care of everything. I could focus on my stuff only and I had plenty of time to play with my brothers and friends.
For college, I had to leave the town and moved to the capital which is 300 km away from home. In the initial few months, it was quite stressful and discomfort was all around me. I just started my BSc in the best school in the country. It is a big deal to get into the school. So, there are also pressure about academic stuff. I was doing Computer Science and I had never used a computer before coming to the school. After the result of the second semester got published I did very bad. I was frustrated and feeling down. I do not know whom to share. I called my father one night and tell him that I think I can not do it. I want to start in a local college and stay close to home. My father is was quite silent. Finished listening to me and finally let me understand that he just wants to try me one more semester for himself and ensure that if nothing goes fine then he will come and pick me up.
At that moment, I started thinking a lot why I failed? Is there anything I could differently? I realized that most of the time I questioned a lot why I am learning the stuff, and where these could be useful. Sometimes, the answers to these questions are missing, and I did not feel bothered about learning the stuff to achieve better grades. I decided for the semester only I will do hard work to learn even though this may not be motivating. I left out all of my negative thinking and start working whatever I had to finish. It looked to me just finish one project and make a cross mark. However, under the hood, I developed interest and figuring out where to use the stuff I learn and how to use it. The interest and positive attitude started making me more confident and I start doing good in-class exams and assignments. At this point, I was feeling I am going back to my previous me who is always motivated to do something good and smiles a lot. Basically, when I am not smiling that means something is going on.
After the first set of good grades, I become more attentive and enthusiastic in achieving one after another. In my third semester, I did really good and got 3.89 out of 4.0 which I have improved from 3.15. Rest of the semesters was quite cool.
After all of these, I realized that sometimes you have to give time to yourself to reinvent you. Positive thinking, perseverance, and feedback from close friends and family may help in the healing process and it is never too late to reinvent yourself. And, these re-invention happened multiple times in my life.
Thank you Mr. or (Madam) Toastmaster