WHAT IS LIFE?

People are dying. Children are screaming. Ebola is ravaging the world; HIV/AIDS is taking over the community. WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF IT ALL?  Girls are raped by those we call brothers. Mindsets are crushed by the foothold of corruption. Shouts of excitement and happiness slowly turning into cries of pain, sorrow and anguish.  Wars destroying not only countries and but also dreams. Babies are born into a world of deep uncertainty, agony and bloodshed. WHAT IS THE ESSENSE OF IT ALL? IS THIS THE REASON WHY WE WERE BORN?

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Simeon Adesola and today the title of my speech is in the form of question. A question we are all familiar with. A question with a million answers: WHAT IS LIFE? How many of us here today have asked ourselves this question? Everybody. This simple yet so mysterious and multifaceted question has being asked since the beginning of time. Some people say life is a choice, in fact a matter of choices and just by you sitting there; just by me being up here, we experience the consequence and the reward of that choice together. Some say life is a story, a story of many emotional chapters; some say life is short because of its rather unique time span. A depressed person would tell you life is a tragedy, a struggle, a long time of misfortune and no, they are not wrong. Companies like LG say life’s good-this is because they steal your money!!!; some of us say life is about partying, enjoying yourselves and really shaking it baby!!! On a more serious note, WHAT IS LIFE?

Life is the reason we are, the ability to breath, grow, reproduce, sing, dance, move, praise, read, and laugh. Life goes beyond being a physical aspect of a living cell. Life is the complex but yet so small gap between your birth and death. Life is a promise, a peculiar yet essential promise we are forced to fulfil through daily living. It is the bearer of hopes, hurt, wishes, grief, splendour, mistakes, victories and yes, death. I believe that life is an opportunity to show the world but most importantly to show yourself what you can make out of it. I believe life is the grandest stage we will ever get to exemplify greatness and distinction. Many of us here, however, believe that life is a simple and insignificant, conceptual and hypothetical “thing”. We believe that life is mere game; you play it to win it and if you lose, shame. We believe that life is another grade to fail and then start over, another race to lose. NO. Life is not what we think it is.

I believe life is free and divine gift from God but not everyone of us believes there is a God, some of us believe life was as a result of random events that lead to random organisms that lead to random people. I am not random and no one else in this hall is either. We have different beliefs, values and cultures yet we still interact, we still do one thing, show one value, express one idea that could almost be proved to be greater than life itself. We still respect each other. Respect, respect, respect, ladies and gentlemen, is a feeling of admiration for somebody not just because of their qualities but for the sole reason that they are human; because they have life. Life and respect must never be separated.

Can all of you look at your watches, your beautiful watches. What word pops into your mind when you see a watch?-time. Time is a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future; in other words time is life and life is time. This is where the word life time comes from. Your life is as good as what you spend your time doing. If you do nothing all day, your life is as good as nothing, your life becomes worthless.

Your life is amazing- OR AMA-ZING, your life is a masterpiece, a work of art, a stroke of genius, a magnum opus. Your life is this great but until learn this, respect and use time effectively, it will remain a diamond in the rough.

If I were to end in anyway, I would end in this quote by Sholem Aleichem- “Life is dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.” WHO DO YOU CHOOSE TO BE?

Speech delivered by:

Toluwani Simeon Adesola

Port Alfred High School

Port Alfred, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Email: drtoluwani@gmal.com