itself
President Franklin D Roosevelt said this
in his inauguration speech he goes on to
say our nameless unreasoning unjustified
terror only paralyzes are needed effort
to convert retreat into advance at the
time people were scared from the Great
Depression in World War two they rushed
the banks to pull their money out their
fear only hurt the US economy mourn fear
as fear is a powerful emotion that has
been used throughout human history and
today I’m going to be talking about it
hi my name is Connor Shaw and I am
talking about our relationship with fear
I want to start off this talk by saying
fear affects everyone differently so
when you’re talking to someone about
hardship or pain or suffering remember
that there it’s doing something
different than you and never
underestimate what someone is going
through and there’s a few points in my
talk which I was originally skeptical
about putting in but I think it’s
important to know and come to terms with
our emotions and how we react with them
and because of this I want to bring up
this idea of the air versus happiness I
believe there in this constant battle
books constant relationship with each
other you cannot have one without the
other you cannot have fear without
happiness and happiness without fear I
think that unioning does a great job of
representing this and I want you to
remember this simple throughout the rest
of my presentation because I’m going to
constantly fir back to it and this
relationship between fear and happiness
so I want to start off a little anecdote
which my mom told me ever since I was
young and it’s part of the reason that I
became Who I am today so at the time my
mom was working for the Olympic
Committee and she was visiting New York
she was on her way to the World Trade
Center and she saw the first plane hit
she remembers every second of this day
she was every second of every minute of
every hour and I’m shaving remembers
telling the taxi cab driver that morning
but this guy was right blue
and beautiful though it turned into
something she would never forget when
describing the incident more she goes on
to say that the tower falling the smoke
and ash coating like in your fireplace
it’s one of the hardest things she’s
ever had to describe but the important
thing about this memory is that it was
seared into her mind for the rest of her
life but happy moments can be seared
into her memory the rest of our lives as
well obviously my for special occasions
graduations these memories are seared
into our mind just as much as fearful
ones are it all goes back to this
relationship between fear and happiness
that day fear consumed my mom New York
City and our country but it wasn’t power
enough to defeat the happiness so why I
wanted to dive more into this
relationship between fear and happiness
I wanted to get a better idea and how
they worked together and I read the
giver to understand this more now the
giver is this fictional society in which
the people’s in the society their
memories are with help so they don’t
experience death or pain or poverty now
on the back of the book it describes the
society as a utopia so utopian novel but
I think it’s more of a dystopia because
these people don’t get experience pain
or suffering or hardship they don’t get
experience all the good things that life
has to offer as well they don’t get
experience happiness or joy or true love
now without giving too much of the book
away because I suggest that you should
all read it one person from each society
is tasked with receiving all the
memories of human history so it doesn’t
repeat itself this person is nicknamed
to the readers as the giver so the giver
receives these memories memories of war
of poverty of suffering and he realizes
that the memories of happiness and joy
come along with this and in our own way
as high schoolers and as we grow up I
think we’re all our own giver we all
have to go through the experiences of
feeling pain and suffering and because
of that we get to know our balance with
fear and happiness now this is one end
of the spectrum I want to get some more
idea of the other end of this
I am this research into suicide now
suicide is the act of intentionally
causing death to yourself
this can be through mental health
disorders such as depression bipolar
disorder schizophrenia alcohol or
substance abuse and the important thing
here is that it’s when someone is lost
someone gives in a dartboard that they
can’t escape and if you’re ever in a
situation when you feel like this you
need to reach out you need to get help I
don’t want anybody to ever underestimate
what someone else is going through but I
want to bring back this relationship
between fear and happiness I think that
suicide is when the happiness completely
consumes the the fear completely
consumes the happiness go back to the
yin-yang symbol that half red half blue
dot it’s now a full red dot now no one
in our society has yet to quite get a
grasp of what suicide causes and how it
works
but I think one person does a great
justice at this and that’s Mahatma
Gandhi now I’ve grown up I’ve heard
different quotes from Gandhi I’ve heard
snippets I’ve seen snippets from his
speeches but I didn’t really know that
much about him and I was really excited
when I read his autobiography which he
appropriately titled my ex my
experiments with truth so for fun when
Gandhi was young him and his friends
they would take dirt and leaves and they
would wrap them up and they would smoke
it like cigarettes because I saw it in
the Western world and they wanted to be
cool but one day him and his friends
were so bored they ran out of games to
play and they had nothing else to do so
they thought about committing suicide
they heard about this leaf that if they
rolled up and put in their little fake
cigarette and smoked it that they would
eventually die of poison the ironic
thing is this leaf was valued at five US
dollars today it was too expensive for
them to afford and this was the only
reason that the fear didn’t consume all
Donny goes on in his autobiography and
he talks about how contemplating suicide
is much harder than she
consilience suicide is much harder than
carrying out with suicide I just want
everyone to remember that you can never
underestimate oneself what someone is
going through if you’re ever in a
situation that you need to reach out and
get help make sure you do it even if you
feel like you’re not so I wanted to tie
this into my own life I wanted to tell
you how this changed my personal life on
two separate occasions the ringing of a
cell phone consumed my life with fear
there was the death of two people very
close to me one was my best friend Sam
and the other was my grandmother Sam
died on a freak ski accident at the age
of 17 my grandmother died of pancreatic
cancer at the age of 82 both of their
deaths hurt me in ways I couldn’t even
imagine I would wonder why them why not
more time and all I wanted was one more
conversation with him and I’m not gonna
lie getting over the desk took a lot of
crying a lot of struggle a lot of
wondering but how I move on and how I
live with their memories it’s all the
happy times and I wish today I could
share with you all the Christmases and
birthdays that I shared with them but I
don’t have enough time for that but I
think it’s important remember their
times remember how they changed my life
and how I’m going to move forward I want
to leave you with a quote from Mahatma
Gandhi if I had no sense of humor I
would have committed suicide long ago he
realized this relationship between fear
and happiness you need to realize your
own relationship with fear and happiness
put your right foot forward live your
life to the fullest and try to
experience the best that humanity has to
offer thank you
you [Applause]