Changing Ourselves

Honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

Today, my topic is “Changing Ourselves”.

At first, I'd like to tell you a little story about an insurance salesman in Tokyo. Even though this man tried very hard to promote the insurance, nobody bought it. One day, he came to a small temple and began to brag about his insurance. After listening to his introduction, the monk said: “Your recommendation of insurance can't arouse any of my interests! When you are communicating with others, you must have the charm to attract others, or you will be unpromising in the future. Young man, try to change yourself!”

The salesman thought deeply about each word. From then on, he invited all his friends to point out his weakness and kept on improving himself bit by bit for all his life. Thirty years later, he became a millionaire. And this man is the famous salesperson in the world: Yuan Yi Ping. His experience reflects one attitude: sometimes, we should change ourselves instead of changing the world.

Human beings always scan others, therefore, lots of people just see the flaws of them, then they will blame and criticize the outside factors, some people will even try to change them! Unfortunately, they ignore the importance of the inner factors.

Everybody in the world needs to examine himself critically, everybody has to learn to be tolerant and generous. You won't think the world is splendid unless you change your attitude first.

Dear friends, we'd better remodel ourselves rather than blame each other. If we do so, we'll find that yesterday's sorrow is today's gratification, yesterday's opponent is today's assistant, and yesterday's failure is today's success! Remember: if we can change ourselves, we can change the whole world!

Thank you!

尊敬的评委、女士们、先生们：早上好!

今天，我演讲的题目是：“改变我们自己”.

首先，我很高兴与你们一同分享一个关于东京的一位保险公司推销员的小故事。尽管他十分努力地向别人推销保险，没有人能够接受，也没人买他的保险。有一天，他来到了一个小寺庙，开始夸起他的保险来。老和尚仔细地听完了他的介绍后，说：“你的介绍丝毫引不起我投保的意愿。人与人之间，像这样相对而坐的时候，一定有具备一种强烈吸引对方的魅力，如果你做不到这一点，将来就没什么前途可言了……小伙子，先努力改造自己吧!”

从寺庙里出来，年轻人一路思索着老和尚的话，若有所悟。接下来，他请了所有的朋友来指出他的'缺点与薄弱处，从而改变自己。他整个一生都坚持着一点一点地提高自身。三十年之后，他成了世界着名的百万富翁。而这位推销员正是世界上最伟大的推销大师：原一平。他的例子印证了这句话，那就是：有些时候，迫切应该改变的，或许不是环境，而是我们自己。

人的眼睛长得朝向外部，总在观察、审视着别人。因此不少人总是先看到别人的缺点、短处，看到世事的不平。于是动辄指责、批评、埋怨别人和外部世界。甚至有人用了很多心思企图去改变它们，结果反倒忽视了改变自身的重要性。每个人都应该仔细地检查一下自己，每个人都应该学着去容忍、宽容别人。除非我们都从改变自己的态度做起，否则世界将永远不会变得美丽。

亲爱的朋友们，我们最好改变自己，而不是埋怨别人。如果我们这么做了，我们会发现：昨天的惆怅会转化为喜悦，昨天的对手今天可能变为助手，昨天的失败会转化为胜利。永远记住：如果我们都改变了自己，那么我们就能改变整个世界!