To the surprise of many who know me there are occasions when I am asked to speak publicly. In an attempt to inspire others… or at least to entertain them for a while as they go through some excruciating ritual. I have recently been asked to do an awards ceremony and graduation for High School students and in the absence of having anything else to say (and fully aware of my lack of posts these busy years) I present my last speech to these poor unfortunates. Please read in a Scottish accent to get the full effect.

ALL MUST HAVE PRIZES

Well here we are at the annual awards and prize giving for St Margaret’s so well done one and all. Congratulations to everyone here and I hope you take a moment to reflect on the success. Enjoy it. Take it in.

Everyone likes a prize don’t they?

No.

You have to turn up at school with your parents, you had to bring your brother or sister with you who is just a complete embarrassment and it might be your idea of a living hell to walk across this stage and shake someone’s hand – utterly terrified of stumbling, or falling off the edge – thinking all the way through that you have forgotten how to walk anyway. Is this funny? Is this how I normally walk? Do I always swing my arms like that?

And now there’s someone in the second row thinking ‘Thanks. That hadn’t even occurred to me and now I can’t think of anything else’.

Sorry about that.

But never mind. It’s awards night! And just as Lewis Carroll wrote ‘All must have prizes!’

Except all don’t get prizes. The people who are being celebrated tonight have done things to deserve their prizes. And no, not all the prizes are the same. They aren’t all for doing the same thing or for the same amount of work.

You might be thinking – it’s just a certificate, it doesn’t matter –  but those certificates are the slightest signal, a nod, a tip of the hat saying ‘well done’. And you don’t know this yet but it might be the last one you ever get.

Seriously, whole years can go by in adult life with no one (and I mean no one) saying well done. Except maybe in a sarcastic tone. Like, ‘Oh well done. I’ll have to wash that now’. Or ‘Well done, you’ve deleted it.’

Yep, sorry to put a downer on it but the years ahead hold precious few ‘well dones’. – Ask your elders – might be parent,  might be an older sibling or a grandparent, carer whatever – when was the last time someone gave them a prize, an award – even just a well done.

Even now they are sitting there thinking ‘Dammit! He’s right – I deserve a well done’ And then they get back home and some unsuspecting soul gets a slap upside the head ‘Why don’t you ever tell me well done?!’.

You know how your parents and older folks are always banging on about how it was better back then. The music was better, the fashion was better, we didn’t have all these gadgets and x boxes and that – we played outside for 26 hours a day and weekends were four days long. It was just better.

Well, for you, this is back then. This is your ‘it was better in my day’. In years to come you’ll be sitting with your kids and there’ll be a cover version of ‘Shake it off’ playing. And you’ll find yourself saying the words ‘You call that music? Taylor’s version was better!’ At which point you are officially past it.

How many of you have been told that these are the best days of your life? Well I’d just like to say that they don’t have to be. In fact I really hope they aren’t. And you don’t want them to be that either. Ask your parents on the way home if it was better in their day, because if their best days are behind them, when did they peak?

95% of the people you see going about their daily lives peaked years ago. Some of them peaked in high school, some of them peaked in primary school and for some of them there has never been a thought of peaking. Of being the best them.

But no one wants to admit that. No matter what they achieved or experienced in the past.

We’ve just had the Olympics in France. Can you imagine? 26-year-old swimmer wins gold. And that’s it. It’s all downhill from there. 30-year-old swimmers don’t even exist in the olympics. You are too old, past it and so those 26 years olds have peaked, they are looking forward to another sixty years of saying ‘want to see my medal’?

But I bet if you asked them, they would still  say their best years are ahead of them.

All you have to do is remember that there is still a hill to climb. And the bad news is that there is never an end to the climbing.

There’s an old musician joke that I just learned a little while ago. It’s not a great joke but it makes my point. There’s a 90 year old guy who plays the violin and he’s pretty good. And a virtuoso violinist hears him and asks ‘You are really good, tell me, do you practice?’

‘Of course’ the old man replies

‘Oh, how much do you practice?’

‘Four hours every day’

‘4 hours?! Why? I mean at your age’

And the old man looks at him and says ‘Because I think I’m getting somewhere’.

Yes, it is good occasionally to pause as you climb and look at the view. Be satisfied with what you have done and how far you have come. And then cast your eyes upwards again. And should anyone suggest going back down then you know what to do. Let them go back down. As you carry on upwards.

You may indeed come across older types who point out that not everyone wins the gold medal, not everyone lives the dream. Not everyone can reach the summit of the mountain. It’s just not reasonable.

At which point I always like to quote the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (you can look him up) when he wrote along the lines of:

There are two types of people in the world, reasonable people and unreasonable people.

All progress depends upon the unreasonable people.

I urge you to be unreasonable. To expect more. Not from life, but from yourself.

Do not be satisfied with tonight’s prize or indeed any prize. Do not ignore it, appreciate the work you did and the effort you made.

I did that. I deserve this.

And that applies to everyone here; young and older. When you go home. Take a moment to reflect on all that you’ve put in. Give yourself a silent well done and just before you go to sleep, cast that aside and tell yourself.

I’m just getting started