英语基本功大赛演讲稿

Be the best of whatever you are!
  For most of us, to be the best maybe means making a lot of achievements, getting high grades at school, earning a lot of money and so on. Someone might say, ‘Yes, I just want to be the best and this is actually the life I want to live.’ Well, not many of them can really realize their dreams. Then someone might say, ‘Since I can’t be the best, then I can be myself. Do everything I want and be the one I want to be.’ Well, you can choose to live this way. But are you sure that you’ll not go astray just because you want to be yourself? These so-called ‘to be the best’ or ‘to be myself’ are just a little one-sided. In my opinion, we should try to be the best self. The experience of Einstein made me deeply believe in this. At the age of nine, Einstein and his classmates were asked to make a little sculpture. All the students soon finished the work except him. When the teacher began to examine their work, she saw the unfinished sculpture of Einstein and shouted with surprise, ‘Oh my god! This is the ugliest sculpture I have ever seen. I 'm sure that nobody could make a worse one.' Einstein said calmly, ‘No, I've ever seen a worse one, the one I made last time.' When I first saw these words, I felt amused about it. Then I learned something from it –even if you can't be the best, you can be the best of yourself. Every time you make a little progress, you are the best of yourself. To be the best self is much more realistic than to be the best and more responsible than to be myself. We set a goal and devote ourselves to it, so even we fail, we’ll not regret. Just as a saying: ‘Till good is better, but better best.’ So the one I have to compare with is not others but myself. In that way, I prefer to be the best of myself and enjoy the things I was doing.So I want to say:
     If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,
　　Be a scrub in the valley---but be
　　The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
　　Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
　　If you can't be a bush be a bit of grass--but be
　　And some highway happier make.
　  We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
　　If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
　　If you can't be the sun, be a star;　　
Be the best of whatever you are!