Let’s Expand Our Horizon

(Speech )

There was a tennis coach in my school. An amazing tennis player, his name was Lovligen. One fine day he sprang a surprise on all of us. An article on him along with his photograph appeared in all the leading dailies. This tennis coach had found a formula concerning planetary motion. There was also a session in which he explained the students his findings. I couldn’t understand anything he told. I asked my physics teacher what it was all about and her face went red. Then for sure I knew the findings were complex. This tennis coach decided to expand his horizon beyond his constrained job path and in the process contributed to the complex field of physics.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, good evening…
Most of us stop learning after we exit out of college. For us the only focus would be that small segment in which we got our job. The rest of the fields will be beckoning us, our aptitude will want us to go and explore that. But still we are tied; tied by our own reasons. The reasons are aplenty; the major one being time and the consequent worry of not meeting the current job and family expectations. Sir John Lubbock a banker, politician, naturalist and an archaeologist said “In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.” Well, of course time flies is a bad news but the good news is you are the pilot.
The second reason which prompts the people to think in the negative is a thought like “If I mange to have more time, then I should spent more time with my friends, family and for leisure activities” .There isn't any need to be sticking around with them all the time to gain their love. Do we love our parents because they are with us all the 24 hours? We should think and do things useful for the advancement for the humanity and make the near and dear ones of us proud. And for the leisure activities they surely will rejuvenate us .But there is no point in continuous fuelling of a car which is never driven.
The third reason which may hold us back is the belief that knowing outside the work profile will never help me us in our career. But, we could always associate whatever things we have learnt to our work. Multidisciplinary areas are the need for the hour. Even the areas of study which we think are totally unrelated may find extraordinary utility in our domain .Those bank officials who studied computer during the nineties are the major officials in the software giants which are offering banking solutions.

After working for several years in the computer field a question struck me -“Do I know any other work if I lose this job”? The answer ‘NO’ was powerful enough to send a shivering down my spine. In that scenario I could imagine myself in a rehabilitation camp with several other techies where other jobs like rubber tapping, hair dressing, are taught. I was certain my worries were not unfound. There were instances in history where an entire class of workers was eliminated. The recent example is the class of workers called typewriters which have become a rarity these days. The cycle of recession that circles over our head can add to this fear. Even if we don’t lose our job we can engage in dual career which has become very popular in the west. The versatile Jennifer Lopez says “On my dual careers in music and film, I don’t feel frightened; I feel challenged.” She was quite successful in her music career but she challenged herself to the new task and discovered herself completely. We may also be challenged by the impending retirement. Once people retire they feel as if they have shed their wings. All of sudden we feel worthless and nothing to do. Why do politicians live longer and healthier? They are always fully engaged. We must also discover the dreams in us and give wings to them; and on retirement we will never find us wingless.But more than the symptoms and signposts that looks threatening isn't there a call from inside for all of us to know and learn about things we never came across. There is a whole lot of knowledge in this world and we don’t even bother to turn our head towards it. This ignorance is cancerous and in the process will engulf us and thwart our learning capabilities. I believe the childhood days were the best for many of us because each day we were able to know about a new thing in this world. And by this knowing a world of opportunities is opened for our progress. But now we learn nothing new apart from our work, we remain monomaniacs and our life has turned monotonous. Learning and expanding our horizon gives us that impetus to unearth a whole lot of possibilities and to be a complete human being.

Michelangelo a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a poet, and an engineer declared at the age of 80’s “I am still learning”.The dire need is staring in front us. And we will decide whether we will be able to cope to the challenges and become successful beings. The steps are to find our aptitudes, find what we can do for that and finally doing it. I went through the introspective approach to recognize my aptitude and it was human behaviour that attracted my interest. As the second step I found what all I could do and decided to get a masters' degree in psychology. I enrolled for the M.Sc in Applied psychology from Bharathiyar university in correspondence mode. Now I have completed this 2 year course and have specific goals in this field to be pursued along. The idea of expanding the horizon had unsettled me. Yet I realized its better to be a sad Aristotle than a happy mud slinging pig.I got the degree.I got the pleasant realization that I am still able to study with the same focus and agility as my college days. Moreover, I got back that wonderful unique thrill that we will have due to the tension on exam days.


Toastmasters, thousands of reasons can rain down and stop us from knowing more of this world .But to leave a legacy of our own to the mankind and to know what we have within us, we always need to sail through the darkest of the valleys and then we will reach the green pastures of self actualization. Let no talent bestowed lay latent. Let’s look inside us and find the treasures of gems that lay within, polish it, and give it to the world which has given us all. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. So, let’s be resolved to know more and no field of study shall be untouchable to us if our mind wants to make love with that stream of knowledge. Over to you toastmaster!!

(Project 10 of CC)