Day 194 - Table Topics

Don't judge each day by the harvest that you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Image of flowers in a garden by likeaduck, via Flickr.com

Wouldn't you know it? Not even five days have passed since my declaration that my list of topics is enough for me to get started each day. But today I am having trouble getting started. Nothing on the list looks like something I can both start and end tonight. So I am turning to a Toastmasters technique tonight - Table Topics.

Table Topics is one portion of most Toastmasters meetings, an impromptu segment that tests members' ability to think on their feet and speak off the cuff. It is the part of the meeting that I used to avoid, keeping my head down and my eyes covered so that the Table Topics Master wouldn't catch my eye and call on me. But after a few years of getting used to the challenge, now I almost have to sit on my hands to keep from jumping up to answer the questions.

So I pulled up a website with inspirational quotes and picked one as my topic for this project, the Robert Louis Stevenson quote at the top of this post.

I recently watched a remarkable video labeled The Incredible Power Of Concentration - Miyoko Shida that I think is even more remarkable for how it illustrates the importance of even the smallest of things. Ms. Shida illustrates her power of concentration. The video illustrates how humans don't need to remain in the picture. And the video illustrates that removing the smallest item in the construction causes it to collapse.

The garden image is particularly appropriate for me as just the other day as I was wrapping the vines of Mandevilla flowers around the trellises in front of our house as I realized how much I was enjoying spending time with the plants. It was a surprise. I had always thought of working in the garden as work, not pleasurable activity.

Then this morning I noticed something else. My colleagues at work gave me an oak seedling instead of a bouquet of flowers or a plant in memory of my dad. But instead of a ten-inch stick with a few leaves at one end and some roots at the other that I thought I could stick in a pot of soil, the seedling was really just a seed packed in moss. I followed the instructions for planting it and watered it regularly, just like the instructions said. But two months later, there was still nothing sprouting from the top of the seed. I was ready to toss it out. Instead, Alex convinced me I should put the pot outside instead of keeping it on the ledge in the kitchen. And this morning I saw the sprout coming through the top of the seed.

Patience and concentration are good. But implementing them isn't easy.

Madam Table Topics Master.