This year has concluded my final year of speech & debate. While I wasn't able to go to nationals this year, my brother, as you've probably heard, took FIRST place at Nationals. :)
You'd think that as a speaker/debater, I'd be able to come up with the words for this post -- but this post has been in-draft for weeks while I tried to think of how I wanted to put things.
Out of all the things I've learned in debate, one of the biggest
things I've taken away is that it's okay to be speechless.
Yes.
Good speakers are good listeners, just like good writers are good readers, and good artists are good observers.
But even more than that, becoming a good speaker is not knowing
how you want to communicate, but
what you want to communicate. And more often than not, it takes a couple speechless, red-in-the-face moments in front of a crowd of people for me to realize what my message really is, and why I'm doing this in the first place. We have to be vulnerable before we can be strong.
It's the grueling pain of experience that makes your message powerful and passionate.
You see...you really have almost no control over your own coherency during a speech & debate tournament. At least, I don't. I don't know about other people. But sometimes I have great rounds and sometimes I have terrible rounds and while it sometimes may or may not have a relation to the amount of caffeine I've ingested, there really is no way to have complete control over the outcome.
Sometimes, I draw a totally ridiculous topic in impromptu, sit there dumbly for my entire prep time, and then get up and give a brilliant speech. Sometimes I draw a great quote but stumble over every other word. Sometimes I've got an ingeniously crafted response to my opponent's argument, and I still lose. Other times I win even though I made clear contradictions in my cases.
I've come to realize that you can't decide what the outcome is going to be. You can't choose how things will turn out and no matter how good you are, it doesn't mean you'll always do well.
Sure, there's a lot of style, talent, and personal love for it that goes into public speaking, but those are
not the things that make you a good communicator.
What makes you a good speaker is
your passion for
your message that
you are sharing.
Communicating is not about getting other people to do things, or trying to make them understand you, and it's certainly not about winning a medal. It is not about proving to others you are more right than someone else,
Communicating is about sharing what you love with those around you. It's about taking that passion that you have and allowing it to run wildly into the lives of others so that they can experience the same delight that you have.
Communicating is about letting your message be your energy, when you have none. About letting what you have to say be the thing that drives you even when you think you can't keep going. And you don't need things to be just so in order to share it, either.
I had a persuasive round this year that was absolutely horrible. I forgot a line said something dumb like "oops I'm sorry, I lost my place...>AWKWARD PAUSE< and stumbled over my words. It was semi-finals.
But what I've learned is that God doesn't need me to be up to my standards of perfection in order to share His message.
In fact he even says,
my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weaknesses. I'm not really sure how God's perfect strength could be "made perfect" through the weakness of
a fallen, despicable human being -- but what I think this verse means is that this great, beautiful, mighty God can somehow work wonders through our shameful, awful weaknesses.
It's that moment you have...in a speech round, as you are reciting the speech you've practiced over and over again when suddenly,
nothing in that moment is more important than your judge understanding and taking to heart what you have to say.
Through speech & debate I have learned the importance of hard work, the value of a small amount of time, and the precious closeness of some of my dearest friends. I have laughed, cried, sweated, and yes, literally bled. I have over 15 trophies and medals, at least a foot's height of judge's ballots, and am skilled in the art of packing for a 3-day tournament in under 2 hours.
In 20 years though, my guess is those trophies will be in a box somewhere. They won't last, but what will are the messages and truths I have learned.
There are many chapters of my life which I am not ready to close. Many which I have clung to desperately as if my identity depended on them, things I could not let go for fear that without it I might not know who I was.
But this time I okay with the ending, because I know that the experiences I have gained will go with me from years to come. I have taken something powerful from this.
It may have been my last year of speech, but my life as a communicator does not end there -- the end of this chapter is just the beginning of a new one. I'm off, I'm running, arms open to the experiences and adventures ahead.
