"Get a Better Mirror"

Shane Koyczan opens with an amazing story and metaphors and each one is more moving the last. Early in his presentation, he muses "We are expected to define ourselves at such an early age and if we didn't do it others did it for us."  This really resonated with me personally because it's true, from the moment we step into school we are asked what we want to be when we grow up, I personally still want to be a mermaid. Koyczan then proceeds to offer comic relief for a short time only to make a stark turn-around into a much darker place and as an audience we are all taken for the ride. He says things that are sympathetic to many of our lives as teenage high school students, "They asked me what I wanted to be and told me what not to be." As a child we are often told that we can be whatever we want to be. However, as we grow older our parents or teachers usually tell us that certain dreams are harder to achieve and that maybe we should think of something more 'attainable' or in my case, of wanting to be a mermaid, not attainable at all. Through his incredable speaking ability, Shane Koyczan digs up all of our painful memories of the first time we were told our dreams couldn't all come true. In the shadows of such bleak subject matter, Shane Koyczan's humor grips the audience and laughter comes easily when he starts telling the tale of 'pork chops' and 'karate chops'. I myself laughed, but when he suddenly ends the story saying that he no longer eats pork chops I felt dirty for laughing, almost as if I was a bully laughing at his misfortune. The poem grows more intense and when the violin plays Shane Koyczan has a firm grip on both my attention and emotions as his voice starts booming. The most relate-able part for me was "He was a broken branch grafted to a different family tree" because I myself was adopted. As someone who wishes to be an educator and hears Shane Koyczan say  "If a kid breaks and no one around chooses to hear. Do they make a sound?" and at the same time growing up I know that the kid makes a sound, but the school chooses not to hear, his message makes me truly desire to make a difference. To compare the school to a big top circus was amazing metaphor because all schools seem to be divided into cliques. He finishes his poem with a message of inspiration; closing on how life "has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty", calling the audience to look at the positive side to life, instead of the horrible realities because if we focus on them too long we might just lose ourselves to them.