Today my mom took me to Los Angeles to hear a speech by Nick Vujicic. I had no idea who he was or what he was going to talk about. All I knew was that my mom was really excited to take me.

We drove to UCLA. I had never seen a college campus before. I liked it. There were a lot of college kids walking around and cafes and stores to look at.

Once we were seated, a man named Dr. Bill Dorfman introduced Nick. On stage I saw a person in a wheelchair and a few other men in front of him and behind him. I didn’t know who was who. The man in the wheelchair then got on a table and started talking. I didn’t realize he was Nick.

I was surprised because he had no arms or legs. My first thought was, “What happened?” I wondered if he had an accident. Maybe he fell off a skateboard or something else. I had never seen a man with no arms or legs before.

I learned that he is 27 years old and he is from Australia. He did not have an accident. He was born that way. He said that when he was just 8 years old, he was very depressed. He got teased all the time by other kids. They always told him he was ugly or that he looked like an alien. One day at school, he counted 12 kids who teased him and called him ugly. They were so mean.

He was so down that he told himself if one more person said it, he would commit suicide. The next person to call out to him was a girl. When he turned to look at her she said, “Hey Nick! You’re looking good today!” She made him feel so good that it erased his bad feelings from earlier.

Nick talked about what is cool and what isn’t cool. He said some kids think it’s cool to bully others, swear, or drink alcohol. Nick said these things are NOT cool.

I agree. He also said if you fall down or if you fail at something, you should never ever give up. Always pick yourself up and try try again. You should never give up because you never know what’s around the corner.

For Nick, if he had committed suicide, I would have never heard him, met him, or learned his important message. He is really funny, too. Nick said that he receives 30,000 requests a month to speak all over the world! I feel so lucky that I got to meet him and give him a hug.

I’m 8 years old and I really like school and my friends. But if I had his experience, I wouldn’t like going because everyone would tease me. The biggest lesson I learned was to never bully or tease anyone. Even though I’ve never teased anyone, not only will I not tease anyone in the future, but I also promise never to allow anyone else to tease anyone in front of me!