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.