Good afternoon, honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen:

    At the beginning, I felt it was hard to make the choice. But the idea of what choice to make came to me suddenly. It is normal to want to be the best, but different people have different ideas of what “the best” is. Some people measure this by exam scores, others measure it in terms of income. How do you measure it?

    When I was 11, many of my classmates were learning the piano. I am competitive by nature, so I told my mom: “I want to learn the piano!” My mom agreed and took me to piano lessons. At the beginning, it was interesting, but soon I felt so tired of it that I even thought of quitting. Two years later, I entered Junior 2. I gradually fell behind my classmates in my studies and had no choice but to give up playing the piano.

    After that, I put all my heart into studying. No matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t get good grades. At one point I considered suicide, but I overcame it when I asked myself, “What is the most important thing?” Then I thought about it for several days, and the answer appeared clearly: “To be my best self.” Why?

    Nowadays, many people work hard to be the best, but they haven’t realized they are losing themselves. Happiness is more important. If you are yourself, you will feel happy every day. You can develop your hobbies and fully enjoy your life.

    Competing is stressful. In fact, they are doing things they don’t like. Therefore, I’ve got some suggestions: “Change your lifestyle! Do things you are interested in.” Only with this attitude can you find that life is more than just a rat race.

    That’s all. Thank you very much!