Prompt:
16 March
Show and Tell
You’ve been asked to do a 5-minutes presentation to a group of young school children on the topic of your choice. Describe your presentation
A Topic of Your Choice
‘Hello children! I won’t take much of your time, I promise. After I give this short speech however, I’ll be at the back of the hall, standing just there. You can come to me and ask any questions you have. But notes that I won’t be there for too long also – I need to go back to my kiosk.
I’d like to say a big thank you to whoever thought it good to invite me, an ordinary kiosk owner, to talk to the future of tomorrow. Of course, I have a lot of wisdom-filled words to say to you, children, but I never believed that anyone saw me as more than a kiosk attendant. So thank you so much.
Good. We’ll go directly into what I’ve come here for. I was asked to choose a ‘topic of your choice’, and that’s exactly what I chose as the topic. I’d like to tell every child here that life itself gives you a blank topic space and asks you to fill it. You have to choose what topic your life would represent.
I’m not here to tell you what topic you should choose. I’m only here to show you what to do while trying to live out the topic you have chosen. These tips were gotten from my experience as a kiosk attendant.
- Know what to put up for sale: Not everything must go up your sales shelf because not everything is buyable, some things are priceless and once you put them up for a price, then you automatically devalue it – no matter the price you place on them.
- Don’t take the credit: Well, for my business, I interpret this literally. It’s a rule for me that I don’t accept to sell goods on credit. But in this situation, I mean it the other way. There is nothing worse than an ungrateful person on earth. Yes, you worked hard, but there is One who makes it possible for you to get wealth. Like the Yorubas say, ‘Some work as hard as elephants but reap as tiny as ants’
- Balance out your life and don’t be ‘all over the place’: I could display all I have to sell (in quantity) in my kiosk in order to make my kiosk look more attractive, but that’s not the smart thing to do. The smart thing to do would be to represent everything I have to sell in the shop. That’s what you should do. Every aspect of your life should be appropriately represented in your thoughts whenever you’re trying to make decisions.
- The fact that you have it, does not mean that you show it: There are some things that really need not be presented to other people until specific times and even only to specific people. Some knowledge, some parts of your body, some emotions and so on. Sometimes, I have bags and bags of sachet water in my storage at home, but I only present bottled water to be sold because I realize that no one is buying the bottled water and they might soon expire. There really is a time for everything, and I hope we learn that.
That’s it children. I searched for a number 5 to balance out the rules but I could not find. And so I thought to myself, ‘What better way to teach kids how to be themselves than to present a 4-point guideline.’
Finally, I encourage everyone here not to forget that you have a choice in the topic your life falls under. I hope I haven’t bored us out of our minds today.
Thank you!
I'd love to hear your thoughts!