Live and Let Live

One requirement of Panhellenic is that 80% of each chapter must attend a mandatory speaker once a semester.  Hundreds of Panhellenic women and some IFC men pile into McFarlin Auditorium, sign in in order to gain attendance points for their chapters, and distractedly listen to the speaker presenting. 

As Panhellenic Delegate for Chi O, it is my job to make sure that the chapter is aware of the speaker.   I had to make sure that everyone turned in excuses to Panhellenic on time if they were going to be unable to attend.  This is a more difficult task than one would expect.  Even after the excuses deadline I received a flood of “I have too much homework” emails and text messages (too much homework is not even a valid excuse according to Panhellenic) that I had to reject.  I obviously do not enjoy forcing my sisters to attend an event that they do not want to go to, but the speakers normally are more interesting than expected.

This semesters speaker was Marc Elliott with a presentation called “What Makes you Tic?”.  When Elliott first appears on stage, he seems like a normal, intelligent, attractive young man.  I have to be honest, I thought he was going to be just another boring speaker who tries to beat some sort of good moral message into our minds.

My assumptions, however, were soon proved incorrect.  Elliott has a very severe case of Tourette’s, which makes him have outbursts of foul language and constantly chomp down extremely hard on his teeth several times in the middle of his speech.  Through several self-control classes in New York, Elliott has incredibly learned to control his tics.  If he had never disclosed his illness to the audience, it would have gone unnoticed by the audience.

Link to video à http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOfeW9qsNV8

The message that he relayed was very powerful, and he uniquely fed the audience the lesson by presenting stories so that no one even realized that they were learning.  The core lesson of his speech was “live and let live”.  As a man suffering from an embarrassing disorder for his whole life, he says that he realizes the importance of being mindful that you never know what someone else is going through.  Elliott says that you cannot make assumptions about others, and that you should mind your own business. 

Because of his personal stories, this message really got through to me and a lot of others I talked to after the speech.  It is true that there are many people extenuating circumstances people have that are not easily seen.  I will remember to try not to judge others, or assume I know about their lives.

XO Love and Mine,

Kat