SPEAKERS CORNER SPEECH TO THE MASSES

My Speakers Corner speech to the masses didn’t go quite according to plan, which is always part of my plan.

Actually, I was prompted to take to the ladder. One prompt and I had my speech ready.

But Hyde Park is a long haul from one end to the other. How long?

Longer than I planned before I decided it was better to write it out instead of shout it out.

Or I got winded. Or it rained. Or I was lost. In any case, here it is:

OREGONIAN’S SPEAKERS CORNER SPEECH, 22 SEPTEMBER 19

The challenges we face in life come in two categories: Those we face, and those we ignore.

If we face our challenges we have a better life.

If we ignore those same challenges we have a shorter life.

And, if we find a way to triumph over our challenges we’ll set an example for others to follow.

Lastly, if we triumph over our common challenges and help others learn to do the same by setting a good example, we have a chance for a great life.

What is the main key to help others triumph over their adversities?

Speakers Corner Pep Talk On Fighting Fear

Young people want to know what sort of planet they will live on in their adult years. They read the news on their phone like anyone else, hear podcasts telling them earth is doomed, past the tipping point, forget about it.

And they fear that no one currently gives a damn about the sort of planet they will inhabit on their inheritance.

Those in U.S. leadership, both in politics and business, want to help, except they want to help each other.

Politicians work with business leaders to promote laws favorable to business in exchange for campaign donations; Business leaders work with politicians to ease their tax load and the cost of dumping their product pollution.

Money talks, but the kids don’t have loud money.

Young adults fear the sort of world they will bring children into.

Is it economic? Cultural shift? No one says much about the environment in terms of hot and cold, but I’ll say it: Millennials aren’t having kids because they feel abandoned on an out of control planet spinning faster and faster away from their nesting instincts.

Older people who have learned to find the calm in the storm need to help others understand how it’s done.

Atomic bombs ended WWII, but started the Cold War. The result was the original baby boom.

Boomers caught a break with Jimmy Carter saying to lower expectations and leave a smaller footprint, but it went away with Reagan’s ‘Morning In America.’

Morning In America meant secret deals to release the Iranian Hostages, secret wars in Central America, and a secret program of Iran-Contra in the White House basement.

All Boomers did was create an even bigger baby boom than the one they belong to. Millennials are the biggest generational cohort today.

The Biggest Fear To Fight

We listen to other talk about fighting global warming, fighting neglect, fighting for a better world, but those are empty words to arouse dormant emotions.

In a case of Fight Or Flee, the sense of fear is most foreboding.

The most important fight on the planet today is fighting the fear that nothing anyone does is good enough. No one can make a difference sort of fear. The sort of fear that says, “Why bother?”

If that’s you, here is one answer to Why Bother:

Once you quit caring about things unimportant to you, what’s left? You quit caring about things important to you.

In the words, you start to quit on yourself. You turn into a quitter, find yourself surrounded by other quitters, then wake up one day wondering if teaching others how to be quitters is a good idea.

It’s not. Which isn’t to say winners never quit and quitters never win like a junior high football coach who quit trying and ended up coaching junior high football.

It’s worse than that. How bad? No one likes a quitter, and once you get that stench around you, it stays around you. You never hear, “Nobody like a stinking quitter,” but that’s what they mean.

Thank you for reading my Speakers Corner speech.