If I was told in 2022 that I would one day be crowned the District 41 International Speech Contest Winner, I would have laughed, not because it was funny, but 'impossible', to someone like me.

I wasn't always confident. Growing up, I was never an extrovert or someone who dared to stand in the spotlight. I was the silent one in any classroom, the one who always hid behind the curtains to go unnoticed. Half of my childhood passed with me getting bullied for that silence, for how I looked, for my whole personality. Eventually, I built walls around myself believing that I am meant to stand behind the scenes not in the spotlight. No matter how unbothered I acted, a tiny flicker in me, dreamt to be seen. Not for validation but for liberation.

I graduated high school with the same dream which I thought would never come true. I might have been delusional, but I was equally determined to achieve that dream so in 2022, I finally promised to improve and walked into my first Toastmasters meeting. I had no idea what to expect, and I never expected to speak. One meeting, and it changed everything. For the first time, I was in a room where people clapped even if your voice cracked. They celebrated every sentence, however imperfect. No signs of bullying, all I could see was genuine appreciation for each other. That is when I thought, maybe I can speak too.

Over the next few months, Toastmasters became my safe space. I gave my first speech. Then my second. Gradually, I started to feel something I had never felt before, confidence. Encouraged by my peers, I decided to aim even higher and enter a national-level speech contest.

And that's where I hit my first wall.

Midway through my speech, I blanked out. My mind went completely blank. I froze, staring at a crowd full of immense talent, that seemed to blur into one giant spotlight of pressure and panic. I walked off the stage broken, embarrassed, and devastated. That is when I felt like I had taken ten steps forward and a hundred steps back. But I chose not to give up because I had paved a long way through. So, I restarted. I revisited the basics, delivered more speeches, sought feedback, and was back on track. In 2024, I decided to try again, this time in the International Speech Contest. I didn't even make it past the Area level. Five contestants. I didn't place. Not even third.

It hurt. Again.

However, that same year, I attended Oration in New Delhi, but not as a contestant, as an emcee. I remember standing on the stage, smiling through the announcements, and when the champion was announced, I clapped like everyone else, but inside, I felt a strange mix of admiration and distance. It felt like watching a dream, someone else's dream. I imagined what it might be like to one day stand there, not as an emcee introducing the finalists, but as one of them. As a winner. It felt so far away, almost unreachable.

That moment planted a seed.

I returned home with renewed resolve. I did everything to refine my present self.

And then came 2025.

I stepped onto that stage again, this time, as a contestant. I had finally cleared the club, area, and division level, and me making it to Delhi itself was magic. I poured my story onto that stage, and somehow, it landed.

When they announced my name as the District 41 International Speech Contest Champion, I was numb. Then came the tears. My dream had finally come true, what once felt impossible had become my reality. As I held that trophy in my hands, my eyes met my mother's, she was there, tears streaming down her face, and in that moment, it felt like life itself leaned in with a warm embrace and whispered, 'Congratulations. You made it.'

This journey taught me that all you need is the courage to live your dream. As I held the trophy I once only dreamed of, I realized that no path is distant, if your passion is louder than your doubt.

Acharya is a part of Presidential Toastmasters Club in Kathmandu. The club meets at Presidential Graduate School, every Saturday, at 11 am.