I do not let the anxiety of multiple pairs of eyes staring wreck me.

I did not prepare a paper for this speech and neither did he.

“Money. Everyone wants it. But, money is greed. Money comes with greed; it’s inevitable. Alright then, how about love? Love is something many people crave, to find their other half, their missing rib. But, with love comes a strong passion. And much people compare love with hate. People will do crazy things for love—just as much as they would do anything to destroy their enemy. All for just a mere taste of vengeance. Life could be about all of these things, one or none. All or both,” I take a breath, seeing the intense lingering stares.

“But, I think it is none of these. The meaning of life is your death.”

Everyone stares at me like I’m crazy. I let them, only for a fleeting moment.

“Yes, whisper behind my back if you must. But, it is true, isn’t it? It is in human nature to die, no one can live forever. You can try and try and try to outlive the inevitable but death is always chasing after you. It could be now, in five seconds, two minutes or five years from now. We will all be going to the same place anyway.” I take a breath, my shaking nerves disappearing now. I only wanted to prove myself, share my thoughts.

“It is how you live your life. It is how you ration your sparingly time. You can spend your entire life thinking ‘she would never like me, I’m too hideous for her.’ Or, you can spend your life thinking ‘who cares if she doesn’t like me? There is plenty of fish in the sea.’ Notice the positive outlook. Even just a drop of can change the entire trajectory of your perspective and I urge all of you to dwell upon this.” I drum my fingers on the microphone.

“When you die, you had two choices. You could have picked to live your life unfulfilled or you could have looked back with your last seven minutes and knew that you fulfilled your life’s purpose.”