The speech I would've given

Here's something pretty much nobody knows: my senior year at Stanford I was a finalist to give the speech at Baccalaureate during graduation. I wasn't selected so no one except the committee ever heard the speech. But guess what I just found in my documents folder?

So, here it is-- the speech I would have given: "What I Believe"

http://cassidylichtman.blogspot.com/p/what-i-believe.html

Look to the children

I often find myself walking down a street in some far-off city that I never thought I’d see.  And as I watch the faces pass me by I sometimes start to think about how I’ll never really understand their stories.  We grew up worlds apart—or at least thousands of miles—with different cultures, values, rules.  We’ve been taught different sides of history, learned different prejudices and embraced different “universal” truths.  And every one of those things has molded and defined us, creating nuances that I’ll never even crack the surface of, even though I try to learn, because I can’t even ask them their names.

When all of that feels like an insurmountable wall erected between us I look to the children.  Because no matter where I’ve gone in the world, the children are the same.  They run down the street for no reason.  They hold hands unselfconsciously with boys or girls.  They get excited for the first day of snow in the winter.  They chase pigeons in the park.  They do cartwheels just because they can.  Just like I did.  And as I recognize myself in them I start to understand that we may be sculpted in different ways through our lives but we all start with the same base.

So it doesn’t really matter that we can’t talk to each other or that none of the faces passing look like mine. Because whatever the nuances in our stories, I know that we share a common core based in the very nature of humanity.  And I think that you can see that best in a child— in Azerbaijan, in California, in Poland or in Ukraine— as he chases a bird and giggles when it flies away. 

Low Expectations

Sometimes on our many ten plus hour flights across the world Karch Kiraly, Tama Miyashiro, Lauren Paolini and I discuss life’s deep questions.  That sounds like the beginning of some weird volley-related joke but we really do and it’s awesome. 

So, one time we were on the subject of happiness and Karch was telling us about a book he had read which argued that happiness comes from low expectations.  It might seem a little pessimistic at first glance but it’s really just about not taking things for granted.  For example, if I expect my food to be bland then I’m really happy when it’s delicious.  Most of us harbor fairly high expectations—we expect to be healthy, loved, well-fed, etc—so when our lives simply meet those expectations there’s no cause for celebration.

I’ve found that life overseas is definitely aided by this philosophy.  We get used to a lot of comforts in America that aren’t necessarily always available overseas.  So we can spend all of our time lamenting over the luxuries we no longer have or be happy when we get them.  Every time I shower I expect the water to be freezing so when it isn’t I mark it down as a victory. 

The fact is, the times that we’re unhappy, it’s usually because of one bad thing that went wrong that day.  But we’ve completely disregarded the hundreds of things that went right because we just expect them to.  If we learn to stop taking all of those little things for granted though, all of a sudden every day life becomes something to be happy about.  And let me tell you, a hot shower makes me really happy.