A Glitch, A Pause, and the Power of Presence

They say a calm mind is a weapon in chaos. I never fully understood that until the day my laptop, the very brain of my speech and debate universe, glitched just 15 minutes before my round.

This wasn’t just a casual inconvenience. My speeches, research, citations, everything I had spent days perfecting, was on that machine. When the screen froze, so did I. My heart raced, and for what felt like an eternity, my brain went completely blank. It was a strange kind of silence, not the comforting kind, but the kind that teeters on the edge of panic.

Then, almost instinctively, a line from The Hunger Games came to mind. “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear” I remembered in the face of impossible odds, leaned not on certainty, but on resilience. That was the spark I needed.

Still shaky, I pulled out my phone and started searching for emergency tech hacks. One forum suggested a hard OS reboot, and if that failed, a full hardware reset. The steps were straightforward but time-consuming. I had 10 minutes now. Not ideal. But still something.

As the laptop rebooted slowly, each spinning wheel feeling like a countdown clock. I reached for my legal notepad. I started scribbling down points I could recall from memory. Was it perfect? Not even close. But it was a start. A backup plan. A lesson in not surrendering to the spiral of “what ifs.”

Five minutes before the round, the laptop flickered back to life. Relief washed over me, but strangely, it wasn’t just relief that I felt. It was clarity. A certain stillness I hadn’t noticed before. I realized something: it wasn’t just about fixing the laptop. It was about fixing my mindset.

I walked into the round more grounded than I expected. Not because everything had gone right but because, when everything seemed to be going wrong, I had kept going.

In speech and debate, we often think success lies in preparation. And while prep is essential, it’s only half the story. The other half is about presence. Being able to stay calm, make decisions, and adapt under pressure — that’s a skill no amount of prepping alone can give you.

Zen teaches us that control is an illusion, and peace lies in letting go. In that moment of technical chaos, I couldn’t control the glitch, but I could control my reaction. And that made all the difference.

Looking back, I’m almost grateful for the glitch. It reminded me that resilience isn’t just a trait — it’s a choice. One that starts the moment we decide not to panic, and instead, take a breath and move forward.

After all, speeches can be rewritten. Files can be recovered. But the ability to stay present — that’s the real winning edge.