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(Applause)
You know, when I had to
make my first ever important decision,
I suddenly had to decide on a lot of things at once.
I had to pick a place where I would go every day.
I had to pick the bed I would sleep in every night.
Among other things, I had to choose
what to do with my life.
It was a difficult decision.
In the end, the life I chose came to me by itself,
and I had just one day to consider it.
I didn't think about my flights there and back.
Those were just two flights, but in between them
was the first important decision I had to make.
Later, it took me a long time to figure out where I had gone wrong.
Everything looked just great on its own,
but when put together, the result was not what I expected.
And so I was surprised to discover that you can choose people.
Perhaps quite accidentally, I found myself in an environment
that I had longed for so much —
an environment full of active and inquisitive people.
At first, it seemed almost ideal to me.
Yet over time, this environment where it's every man for himself
began to feel as if it would fall apart at any moment.
In my opinion, for an environment to be stable,
it must be built on common ideas
and values shared by its every participant.
What is more, these values should serve their own selfish goals.
But even that is insufficient.
For an environment to be a comfortable one,
besides ideas and values, it should be built upon co-responsibility,
i.e. responsibility of each person in this environment
for how they understand these ideas and how they put them to action.
Personally, this was the only way I was able to learn
that the success of an individual
equals the success of their community.
Therefore, now I am trying really hard
to do my best to fit in with every environment I find myself in.
Thank you!
(Applause)