曹琳 魯東大學
Strive For Our Future

Honourable judges, ladies and gentlemen, good morning:

Mary kay Ash once said, “Most people live and die with their music still un-played. They never dare to try.” I appreciate this sentence and now, I would like to share a young man’s story with you.

He was the son of a horse trainer who would go from ranch to ranch, race track to race track. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. Once he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be when he grew up. That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of some day owning a horse ranch. But later, his paper got a large red “F”, and he was told to rewrite another paper with a more realistic goal. The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. His father said, “Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this.” Finally, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. “You can keep the F and I will keep my dream.” He stated. Now, the boy named Monty Robert owns a 4,000 –square-foot house in the middle of his 200- acre horse ranch.

There is a poem written by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird.
That can never fly.
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field,
Frozen with snow.

How beautiful it is. Yes, we shouldn’t give up our dreams. We shouldn’t give in to the large pressure on the way to realize our dreams.

There is a group of graduated students called “school-drifters”. According to China Daily, the number of the “school-drifters” had reached 100,000 as long ago as 2005; the number is of course increasing over the years. Living on school resources is a way of cutting living costs. Living close is convenient and familiar. But the real reason for this phenomenon is the intense conflict between the real world and their ideals. The notion “Anybody coming back home without achievements is a loser.” together with a too-high expectation from parents make them dare not go home and speak out their real situation. Enter grad school, find a better job, stay in big cities are their good wishes. Though the reality is cruel, they can realize them step by step.

In the film “The Pursuit of Happiness” when Chris saw the spelling error in the word “happyness”, he said these words: There is no y in happiness, there is i. And also, when we are striving for our future, we should remember there is i and no y. When the rich second generation drive their BMW on the high way, when the official second generation achieved a high position easily, the common young generation could also change their lives through hardship and toil.

How shall we do? Robert H. Goddard gave us the answer, “It is difficult to say which is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and reality of tomorrow”
Thank you for your listening.