Fireside Chat Reflection - Limitless

At the beginning of this semester, Benjamin talked about the fact that one of these assignments would inevitably be out of our comfort zone at some point. This was that assignment for me. I do not particularly enjoy speaking in front of other people, and where this was our final exam, I felt like there was extra emphasis on this assignment. This made me even more nervous to speak. I was very influenced in class when we talked about the things that we believe. I decided to speak on a topic that was very near to my heart, and my beliefs, but was something that I had never spoken about with a large group of people. There were many topics that I could have spoken about, but I felt impressed that I should speak on the topic that I chose. I kept wanting to talk about other things, but this was the topic that I felt most passionate about at this time. With the decision to speak about the topic which I chose came a lot of stress and doubt, and also a lot of worry to make sure that I was talking about exactly the things that I believe. I wanted to make sure that this topic, which is very near to my heart, was represented fairly, and was represented accurately to my experience. Over the past several years, I have been very inspired by various TED talks and speeches where people discuss hard things that they have experienced in a hopeful manner. Although I have never heard her speak, I have been inspired by Elizabeth Smart, and her willingness to discuss the hard things that she has been through with the public. This semester, and the past several years of working on art have all been leading up to me discussing this topic, and being fair about the topic that I chose. For several years, I have promised myself that I would discuss this topic in public, and this was the first time that I was able to do it. For this reason, this project was extremely important to me, and was one of the most important to me of the semester. At the time, I did not explicitly express what I believe in from this presentation. I came into this project wanting to tell my story, and I wanted to let people gain their own insights from my story without me telling people what to think. I simply wanted to present a part of my story, which has never been presented in public before. However, I also wanted to present that each of us has problems and trials that we may perceive limitations from. But if we have compassion on our limits, and acknowledge them, we can still be limited in how we achieve things, but we will never be limited in what we achieve. That is what I truly believe.