When In Doubt Laugh It Out
January 18, 2019 Uncategorized 3 comments dgendron19
Laughter can make tough situations much easier to deal with in the moment and can allow you to look back on situations that were difficult to deal with in the moment, and make them seem insignificant and much nicer memories. Laughing can heal people and help them get through hard times in their lives. There have been many times that I have been in a situation that seemed very embarrassing at the time but afterwards I would look back at it and laugh at how stupid I was being.
These events happen very often, one of these events that was very embarrassing in the moment was getting up in front of my English class during sophomore year and presenting my Sophomore Speech and completely butchering it. I spent weeks and weeks practicing and preparing to present my paper on Health Screenings for High School Athletes. I had spent hours writing, revising and reading this paper I thought that there was no way I could possibly fail. During the days preceding my Sophomore Speech I began to get very nervous and so I would constantly read my speech to get as familiar with it as possible. When the presenting day finally came upon me I was as ready as ever. I sat in my desk and waited until it was my turn to present, as I waited for my name to be called the minutes felt like years.
My name was finally called and it was my time to finally present. I got up, as confident as possible, and began walking to the podium as I turned to the sea of faces I became more nervous than I had been the entire time that I had spent preparing for my speech. As I began speaking it seemed as if my speech was going to go great. I recited my first few lines with no trouble whatsoever but soon everything began to go downhill. I began to stumble and stutter on every single word and could not get back on track. As I was presenting the only thing that I could think of was how embarrassed I was for ruining my presentation. Thinking about the embarrassment made it even worse as I began to blank on every other word not being able to recite a single sentence. “That’s it” I thought to myself, I did not think that anyone would ever let me forget how badly I had embarrassed myself. I believed that people would always remember my Sophomore Speech and how much I messed up. I stopped for a few seconds, took a deep breath and attempted to recollect my thoughts and finish strongly. This allowed me to continue my speech with at least some words that resembled a sentence. Afterwards the question portion of the speech came along where the listeners could ask any questions they wanted. At this point I was dreading this part of the speech for the fear that I would not have any answers. Luckily when the teacher asked if anyone had any questions, nobody asked me anything. I let out a sigh of relief and finally found my way back to my desk after what felt like the longest 5 minutes of my entire life.
As soon as I had finished my presentation I was so disappointed with it that I never wanted to present again. I was assured by my friends that I did not do as bad of a job as I had thought I did, but I knew it was not good. A few days after the presentation I began to realize how unimportant and insignificant this event was. The more that I thought about my presentation the more I realized that it was actually very funny. I ended up talking to my friends about the speeches a few days later and we all made fun of our speeches together which helped me get over the embarrassment of the presentation. We laughed about our presentations for a while which made me realize that anyone and everyone has flaws, nobody is perfect.
In this case laughter was the best medicine. Laughing helped me get over this embarrassing moment during my sophomore year. Laughing at my presentation has helped me get over my fear of presenting because it made me realize that messing up on a presentation in high school is not the end of the world but instead a minor problem that can be very funny when looked back on. Memories that are embarrassing in the moment can end up being great memories in the future.
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3 Comments
This was kind of funny to read because I remember thinking the exact same thing about my own sophomore speech after I presented it. Also I do agree with you, when looking back on the presentations it does seem trivial and humorous. On the other hand I don’t remember much about my sophomore speech asides from thinking that I made a good presentation that I didn’t present very well.
The way you described the sophomore speech reminded me of my feelings. I also was quite nervous at the whole thing and felt as though I bombed the whole thing, but in the end I was able to laugh because the whole ordeal had been over.
I really enjoyed your story and I believe no one is perfect everyone is always a little nervous and is afraid of messing up no matter the time you put into something. I had the same experience with the sophomore speech. I practiced for hours reciting my lines without thinking nervously and had so much confidence telling myself that I had this in the bag. Sometimes even if we think we’re ready there’s still this second voice or mental blockage telling us we’re gonna mess up. I think there is no cure for being nervous but just to understand that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes.