The Best Things
I was asked to speak at Camp Rising Sun’s first ever virtual Alumni Reunion Council. I prepared the following speech:
Hi everyone, my name is Yena Sharma Purmasir. I feel so grateful to be sharing this space with you all today.
I was thinking about how I’ve been to so many councils over the years, as a camper, as counselor, as an alum. A lot of council speeches seem to be answering the question: what’s the worst thing that ever happened to me? Or, more specifically: how did I survive the worst thing that ever happened to me?
That’s not a bad thing. We know that terrible things happen all the time. Just look at all the terrible things happening in 2020. It’s not surprising that we want to know how other people weather their horrible storms. We want the wisdom of their experience.
There are some people here who know me, really know me, and if you asked them, they could tell you what my worst things are. I’ve talked about my worst things before. I’ve written about them. There’s a whole book about one of them.
But these same people, who know me and love me, I don’t know if they could tell you what my best things are.
I don’t talk about my best things. In fact, I don’t even actively think about them. Focusing on my best things makes me nervous — like I could jinx them and they could end. Or if they’ve already ended, they could disappear from my memories and become one of my worst things.
When I was a camper, my tent counselor used to ask us to name our highs and lows every night. 2020 feels like a low. 2020 is easily one of the worst years. We are witnessing mass death, mass suffering, mass injustice, mass political corruption, mass political violence.
And still, during this awful time, some of us are also having the best time.
2020 is also the year where people will fall in love and get married and have babies and do that thing they’ve always wanted to do. Like write a book, or score an awesome internship, or reconnect with an old friend, or foster a new talent.
This worst year, might also be the best year. And it’s not just about perspective, or blind optimism. It’s the truth. Life keeps happening, even when it seems like it isn’t.
This is not a speech about surviving my worst things. I’ve done that. This is a speech about my best things, which I still can’t tell you about. I’m sorry, those are my secrets. Just know that, they exist. They make my life worth living. I’m holding onto them right now.
This year, this moment of grief and loss and pain, requires us to have immeasurable courage.
And courage feeds on joy.
As we work actively to build a world that is antiracist, we have to believe that the world can change, and that good things, the best things can happen.
I love my life. It feels so indulgent to say that, but it’s true.
I think about how people love me, and how lucky that is, and how I’m good at things, and how lucky that is, and how I can laugh at anything, and how lucky that is.
My life is made up of the best things. It is so good that sometimes, I feel like I’ve cheated. Like I don’t deserve it.
Council speeches often end with a challenge. Something for us to take up before we reconvene again, whether that’s in a week, or a year, or never. This challenge is something that so many of us struggle with. As I’ve been talking, I hope you’ve been thinking of your best things.
How people love you, how good you are at things, how lucky you are.
I hope you remember your best things and think of them often. They make you strong. And with everything that is happening, you need to be strong.
And, when you think of your best things, and think of how sometimes your life is so good that you feel like you cheated, and you think maybe you don’t deserve them —
I hope you remember me telling you right now, that you do.
You deserve the best things.
You deserve the best things, even if they happen in the worst times.