{"id":1376,"date":"2020-05-24T22:36:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T17:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2020-05-24T22:36:14","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T17:06:14","slug":"the-best-thing-i-learned-from-gavel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/?p=1376","title":{"rendered":"The Best Thing I learned from Gavel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still remember quite distinctly how I\nfelt before walking into my first Gavel meeting. The meeting was to be held at\nthe Independence Square and as I was walking towards the meeting place, I felt\nnervous.   Though I didn\u2019t have the clearest idea about\nwhat goes on in Gavel meetings, I knew it had a lot to do with speaking. I\nremember having this uneasy feeling in my stomach as I pondered on various\nscenarios that could take place at the meeting. Even though I was not terrified\nof public speaking, it somehow made me anxious and a little uncomfortable.\n\u201cWill someone ask me to do a speech?\u201d \u201cWhat if I say something wrong?\u201d \u201cWhat if\nI do any mistakes?\u201d These were the questions that ran through my mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I reached the meeting place, I was greeted\nby a bunch of laughing Gaveliers who were chatting enthusiastically with each\nother. The meeting has not yet begun. At once, I began to regret my decision of\nshowing up. The people there already knew each other and I started to feel out\nof place. Seeing that I was a newbie, some of them talked to me. I didn\u2019t talk\nmuch; only briefly replied to the questions they asked. By the time the\npresident arrived and called the meeting to order, I was a little tense. \u201cIt\nwas a bad idea, deciding to come here!\u201d That\u2019s what I thought. The meeting\ncontinued and I learned that there was a session called the Round Robin Session\nwhere each person talks for 20 seconds on a theme chosen by the Round Robin\nMaster. That day, we had to speak about our childhood memories and what we miss\nthe most about our childhood. I nervously waited for my turn and I remember how\nextremely relieved I was after that 20 seconds were over. Rest of the meeting\nwent perfectly well. I listened to so many good and interesting speeches and\nsaw them being evaluated in the Evaluation sessions. I realized that these\npeople do not judge us for our mistakes and that they only help us become\nbetter by helping us learn from our mistakes. By the end of that day, I had\nenjoyed myself quite a lot and had already made some new friends. I said to\nmyself, \u201cMaybe this isn\u2019t a bad idea after all!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I continued going for meetings and at each\nand every meeting I learned something new. I didn\u2019t feel as tense as I felt at\nthe first meeting and began to enjoy myself at the Round Robin Session. After\nspeaking up only at the Round Robin Session for a few weeks, I got the chance\nto do a Table Topic speech. Hesitant at first, I was actually surprised at how\nwell I managed to do it. Listening to a fellow Gavelier evaluating my speech, I\nbecame encouraged and motivated to do more speeches. I actually found myself\nlooking forward to the Table Topics Session in the meetings. As time flew by, I\neven began to take up roles at meetings. Through Gavel, I began discovering\nmyself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gavel taught and is continuing to teach me\nso many things. The most important thing I learned from Gavel is, \u201cThe more you\nspeak, the easier it gets\u201d. Looking back at how tense I was for having to speak\nfor 20 seconds, I\u2019m proud of the progress I\u2019ve made. As I gave more and more\nspeeches, it became easier and even fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gavel encourages me, motivates me and\ninspires me to be the best version of myself. So, I\u2019m glad I showed up at that\nfirst meeting, despite feeling uneasy and nervous. There are situations in\nlife, where we feel like we have made the wrong decision even though it\u2019s the\nright thing to do. But remember, that\u2019s just your unwillingness acting up. The\nbest thing I learned from Gavel has nothing to do with speaking at all. That\nis, the small decisions we make in life, decisions that might seem\ninsignificant, can actually end up changing our life for the better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I still remember quite distinctly how I felt before walking into my first Gavel meeting. The meeting was to be held at the Independence Square and as I was walking towards the meeting place, I felt nervous.   Though I didn\u2019t have the clearest idea about what goes on in Gavel meetings, I knew it had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":1377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[4,63,74,65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions\/1379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavel.cmb.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}