Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

You can view this TED talk at: Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

Neil Pasricha's speaking style blends in very well with his topic and his overall ideas. His presentation is clearly well-rehearsed, and he seems very relaxed. He gestures to help emphasize his points, but his gestures are not distracting, nor are they very grandiose or over-zealous. He walks across the stage every once an a while to prove his point, but not distractingly so. He also does a great job linking his presentation to his slides, and using his slides to support his topic, even though you could probably also understand what he is saying even if you were only able to listen.

Throughout his TED talk, he discusses the little things that make life awesome, categorized into three categories: Acceptance, Awareness, and Attitude. He also explains why these things are important to maintain, and how they can lead to a happier life, despite ever more dismal news reports and tough times. While watching his TED talk, I was struck by just how important it is to focus on the good things in life. I was reminded of how even the smallest gesture can bring huge amounts of joy into someones day, how a simple "please" or "thank you" or "have a good day" can change someones day, and the way they choose to approach it.

While he was talking about acceptance, I remember thinking just how hard it can be to do just that: to accept yourself for who you are. That part isn't the hard part. The hard part is truly living by doing what you would do, not what someone else would make you do. Acceptance of yourself must begin, I think, with acceptance of others. If you cannot at least appreciate the path that someone else has chosen, then you cannot expect others to accept you. I also found myself wondering why we make it so hard to love ourselves. It seems as though we are always waiting for ourselves to become better, wishing that we could be as beautiful or as smart or as athletic as someone else, instead of appreciating ourselves for who we really are.

When he began to discuss awareness, I was shocked by just how many little things that we race past each day. We do not appreciate the sunrise, the unique shape of a shadow or the beauty of the falling snow. We do not take the time to appreciate just how privileged we are. We take for granted the glass of water we just drank, and throw away food when we do not like the way it tastes. But maybe we should not do these things. If you try to imagine just how different the world would be if your really sat down and thought about how awesome it was that you get to drink that glass of water, it seems almost impossible. When I think about it, I can see that if you take time to appreciate everything, it would give you energy and purpose. It would force you to accept just how awesome your life really is.

While he was discussing attitude, I felt many similar sentiments wash over me. How your attitude changes the way that you approach life in a new way, how nothing is hard if you don't think it is, etc. But these things really do change your life. If you simply decide that today is going to be great, then it most likely will be. Yet, despite this, many people do not appreciate their attitude and do not make an effort to control it.

At the end, I was left wondering just how awesome the world could become if we all took the time to accept how awesome we are, become aware or the awesome world around us, and approach each day with an attitude that will make it awesome. The world would be a better place, and people would perhaps stop throwing away their time and their energy towards feelings that they have the ability to change.

Caroline Casey: Looking Past Limits

You can view this video at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/caroline_casey_looking_past_limits.html

Caroline Casey's speaking style drew me in because of her evident passion in her speech. She opened with an example we could all connect to, and then proceeded to tell a story to emphasize her point and describe why it is so important to her. He speech empasized her ability to look past her limits as well as the conflict behind doing so, though her gestures alone. She relates to the audience and makes them feel as though this could be their story too.

The idea that Caroline Casey presents is very important because it shows just how much our limits are only what we percieve, not our physical limits. I think that her story is very impotant because it shows how she could change her perception of her disability, and thus be able to do things that people told her she would not be able to do. It also shows the miraculous courage that you need to be yourself. It is amazing how much trouble she would go through trying to be someone else in order to succeed. It made me think about how much we all do, even subconsiously to fit in and serve the norm. Unless we choose to be decidedly different, then we are pushed into the norm. It makes me wonder why we all feel a need to fit in to a social norm, and how this norm is created.

I also found myself thinking about the human yearning to feel like we are perfect, and our tendency to look past our flaws, instead of addressing them. I think that it is important that we focus on our flaws, on how fragile and shattered we can become so that we may overcome them. If we were to see our flaws as a part of who we are instead of something that holds us back, who knows what we can accomplish?

Dave Eggers' Wish: Once Upon a School

Dave Eggers’ speaking style is somewhat clouded by his nervousness. His nervousness does, however, show how he is just like everyone else. His movements onstage were subtle and easy to overlook as simply part of the talk. His passion became evident as his nervousness begins to fade, and the purpose and vision behind his talk is evident. The only thing that I found very distracting was how many times he said “uh” or stalled between his words and then got very stressed about the amount of time he had left.

I think it is interesting how a simple change of environment so strongly affects the motivation of these children. Just coming up with a space that everyone goes to, regardless of ability, to get help entirely changed the way that students felt about getting extra help. If you are constantly told that you are not good enough, eventually you lose motivation to try because it seems like you will never accomplish anything. By allowing a genuine accomplishment to come more immediately, it removes the assumption that school is only to prepare you for life, and therefore encourages students to put in much more effort than they normally would.

The fact that something so little could change the course of someone’s life forever is amazing. It makes me think about how much unused energy is wasted, and how much potential s wasted because people are told that they will never be able to do something. It makes me wonder just how much could be gained if everyone took the time to listen. But, then again, maybe having someone to listen to them is just different and that is why it helps. It is very strange to think about just how large a difference a small effort can make, and that effect cannot be predetermined or controlled.

I think that Eggers highlights a very important deficit in schools today - that kids come into school wanting to learn and lose that joy and that passion over the years. If school was truly based on learning, then everyone would be judged based on how much they improved, essentially how much they learned working on any given assignment. In his project, Eggers clearly shows just how important a connection with doing anything to help kids to love learning is likely to be received with joyful passion. It makes me wonder just how much people would learn if they were judged based on how much better you did than last time. In this way, you would be able to learn and focus on the passion and the purpose in your work, instead of being forced to complete it, even if you don't want to and making little or no effort.

If we all made an effort everyday to learn from everything we do, and to teach others what we have learned, then the changes to the community would impact the whole world for the better.