wall or bridge

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Zhao Yue. Today the topic of my speech is wall or bridge.

When I read this title the first time, I was confused about what it meant. After a second thinking, I got my own understanding about the topic. In my opinion,” wall or bridge”means “challenge or chance”. A wall is something that stands in my way; while a bridge is something that helps me go through a river and reach my destination. But when there is a wall in front of us, can we change it into a bridge which can give us a hand? To talk about this, I’d like to tell a story of myself on this competition.

This is the second time I give a speech since I have graduated from elementary school, no matter in English or Chinese. And the first time was the preliminary contest. When I began to prepare the competition, I was at a loss about what to say, how to express myself properly, how to use my body language and so on. It’s a difficult task and a great challenge for me. But one day when I was staying in bed thinking about my speech, there was an idea came to my mind: now that I know I will do it, why not look it as a chance of self-presentation instead of a competition? After I saw it in this angle, I could do it in a positive way. I wasn’t as nervous as before, which made my mind think calmly and freely. When now I am standing on the stage, I won’t only focus on the score or whether I can recite the passage but how to use every moment to express my opinion. By doing like that, I change a difficult task into a chance to enjoy myself.

Sometimes it looks like a wall standing in front of us, but in fact, it’s totally up to ourselves whether it is a wall or a bridge. Maybe it is kind of disaster for some people, but for other people it will be something that helps them become successful.

For example, Steven Jobs, former co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc, was fired by Apple in 1985. For most of people it is a big failure, but Jobs looked it as a chance to restart his career. In those years, he built“NeXT” computer company,Pixar and well prepared for the back to Apple.

Life won’t be always smooth, so you have to face to all kinds of difficulties, challenges and even disasters sometime in life. However, whether we can become successful does not depend on the problems we have met but our attitude to the problems. Finally, I’d like to answer the question I have given in the beginning of the speech. The answer is yes. Yes, we can change a wall to a bridge, if we see it in another way and make enough effort to do it.