Humanitys Greatest Weapon is Faith
[Applause]
what is humanity’s greatest weapon
nuclear warfare a knife a pen
i believe that it is faith it is a
double-edged sword
that acts as something that can make us
infinitely stronger
but it can also destroy us
it can be the rope that strings bones
together or the very knife
that severs it cliche
same here that’s exactly what i thought
as i wrote those very lines into my
speech
but think about it what has us all here
alive
and listening to this speech faith
it’s small but it’s one of the most
fundamental elements of our lives
and so at this point you must be
wondering what this 15 year old kid is
doing
talking about this huge abstract topic
of faith
and well to answer that question i’m
here today to share with
you why i feel that faith is so very
important in my life
before i kick off into my speech here
are some things about myself
i’m 15. i love basketball
and like every other 15 year old on this
planet i have a hell load
of trust issues and it starts from the
most fundamental issue of trusting
whether my k drama
is going to be released on time all the
way
to trusting myself and the people around
me
you see i love building these huge huge
walls around myself
to protect myself from trusting
making sure i have no expectations
whatsoever because
no disappointment and then being like
this super strong person that never
breaks
now let me rewind for us a little
in secondary one we were playing this
match
27 june 2018.
we were 30 minutes into the game i had
this golden opportunity
a free lane crossover
shoot okay well at least that’s what i
imagined in my head but the shot never
really happened
because i fell in sight flat to the
ground
hearing a pop sound from my knee
i tried standing back on call only to
fall back again
i could not walk literally
things just happened so fast they took
me to the hospital the doctor said
i told this super important ligament
known as the acl
i was out from all batches that year
this essentially meant
i could not walk run or even bend my
knee
okay mind you at this point i did not
care that my k dramas were getting
released
late so
i remember thinking to myself as a 13
year old dejected kid
lying on bed crying and as i soaked my
pillows
wet i remember this thought that hit me
why did i think i would never fall
why was it that the only thought that
occurred to me was making that basket
and i fell asleep to that very thought i
was never really able to answer that
question
because like every other time my
wonderful coping mechanisms kicked in
again
and i built those walls again higher
than before
rehabilitation was painful even more so
because i refused to trust the people
around me i refused
to rely on the people around me i
refused to have faith
and so one night during that period i
remember i was going to bed once again
just thinking of the same thought
and my mom entered the room and she lied
down next to me and she asked me
have i been a stranger to you for the
past 13 years
and at that moment i thought to myself
what the hell is she spewing
teenagers and then she proceeded with
you may be strong but you only go to
sleep
with the faith that you will wake up
tomorrow morning
i hesitated for a second what did she
mean
it was a simple reminder to the lost me
that even in the darkness of the night
these small elements of faith
are what keeps us going that although
today was not that good a day maybe
tomorrow when we wake up
it will be a better day and so at 11 pm
with a major brain lag
only one word resounded to me faith
it was my unseen underlying trust
that i would not fall and come to think
of it
the most important faith that we all
have is the trust
that in the next 0.001 seconds we will
not stop breathing
because if we did not have this
confidence this belief
this trust that we would not stop
breathing
we’d all be dead so yes
unlike a very model student the next day
i went to school
and paid attention in no class
whatsoever
after this realization and went home and
broke down in front of my mom
i cried knowing that my mom was there
for me
i had faith in her and so if anything
happened my walls came down
i had faith that she would take care of
me that she would be there for me and
can i just say that wow
things were so much easier because now i
could finally share my feelings with
with someone no matter how much we want
to run from it
the reality is that all we want is for
someone to trust us
and for someone to have our backs and
for that someone or something to trust
us too
i’d like to take a moment now to say
that faith to me at least
isn’t something that can be given a
rigid definition to i think it’s more of
an emotion
that’s given the meaning trust
confidence
loyalty and even love to some extent and
although yes
this sounds super positive and super
good looking
we all know that trust issues don’t just
go away if k dramas get released on time
i still have an issue trusting and i’m
so sure that my best friends will agree
with that statement
110 but if there’s anything
i learned it was the fact that if not
for my
friends and family who had so much hope
and faith in me
i would not be functioning
and so only with this faith that my mom
had in me that my friend’s head in me
was i able to get through my recovery
i’ll never forget what my friend eunice
said to me
the day i could finally start running
again i
believe in you her faith
is what gave me the will to get better
do better
this acl experience reminded me just how
important faith is in our lives
so only with this faith that my friends
heard in me
was i able to get through one of the
darkest points in my life
and so as my friend jq once said the
stronger ones
are not the ones that believe they can
do it on their own
but rather the ones that appreciate and
understand the value
of having faith in something or someone
faith a simple word but brings a
hurricane of impact in someone’s life
although many a time it’s challenging
and it’s not easy to have faith
what cost is not having it worth it to
wrap it all up
i stand here today not to give a
concluding statement
but to merely remind us that faith still
exists
in this crazy world so if you ask me in
this 15 year old point in my life
what faith is it is hoping
hoping that things will get better
trusting
trusting that someone will have my back
and believing believing
in myself faith
you