An Awesome Life (TED Talk #7)

Based off of the TED talk by Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of awesome

Neil Pasricha gave an inspiring TED talk about what most of us do not appreciate-the world is awesome. Drawing on past hardships and rough times, Neil Pasricha teaches the world how to savor the simple things in life. He starts out by telling a story of how his parents moved from Kenya and India to Canada. There his life was great up until 2008 where everything seemed to be falling apart. He started a blog about how even though his life was horrible; there was still a lot of good to be thankful for. The biggest lesson he is teaching here is that people need to stop and be thankful for all of the little things in life. In a world of increasing complex material items it can be easy to lose yourself, but stopping and wondering at the joys in life will lead you to have a fuller, happier life. Today, where life is better for most people than it was in the past, it is easy to take things for granted. If you have not lived without all of the luxuries we have today, it is hard to not take things for granted. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone is exactly right. I know that my mom tells me all of the time that I don’t know how lucky I am, and it’s true. I understand that I have a lot to be grateful for, but since I don’t know what it is like to live without the life that I have right now, I can say that I am grateful, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know what it is really like to be grateful. One of the only ways for people to truly appreciate what they have is for them to have not had it before. How can we get people to be thankful for everything that they have without having them lose everything?

Neil Pasricha then goes on to say that in order to live a fully awesome life, you must try to follow and incorporate the three A’s of awesome. The first A is attitude. If you are in a bad situation, there are 2 choices. You can mope around because of your slumps or you can mope around and then pull yourself back up. The difference between those who have awesome lives and those who don’t is that the awesome people choose option number 2. There are always 2 choices; look at something and just see the bad, or look at something and see the good. It is the difference between looking at the glass half full or half empty that makes the people who come out on top or the people who come out on bottom. Family crises result in the family bonding together, or they can drive them apart. You hear stories about people who were in hard times, but they learned from them and came out of them stronger than before (Neil Pasricha is a great example of this). It all depends on who will fall or who will fall and get back up again. The ability to take something that was not meant to happen and still learn from it and look for the positive is important in a society of imperfection. Everyone has problems and downfalls in their life, but that doesn’t mean that you can use them as an excuse to be grouchy or have a bad attitude. It is just part of life. A negative outlook on life can affect so many things: your health, your friends, your job, your motivation, etc. A positive outlook on life can bring so much, so why don’t more people have that?

The next A to follow for an awesome life is awareness. Awareness is the ability to take on your 3-year old self by wondering at the smallest parts of life. When you are 3 you are seeing the world for the first time, so everything in itself is a small miracle. When you look at something from the right perspective, it can be amazing. Taking something as simple as the smell of dinner cooking can either be normal or it can be wonderful, which relates back to attitude, but it is also about perspective. You can look at the simple joys of life as being normal, or you can look at them like a 3-year old and see them as incredible. People again from other countries can see the incredibleness of these gifts because they have never had them before. The world is amazing. Have you ever thought about how a camera works, or how a fruit all the way from Costa Rica traveled to where you are now so that you could buy it for 25 cents(with it not going bad)? Yet we are all too concerned with the more and more complex gadgets. The iPads and the luxury cars and the extravagant fruit pies would not be possible without the simple, basic necessities. What differs 3-year olds from adults in this case is that 3-year olds are seeing this for the first time. Adults are so used to all of the simple pleasures that it gets harder and harder for them to keep up this constant thought of awesomeness in everyday routines. How can people keep up this constant wonder of a 3-year old to be awesome?

The last A is authenticity, which is embracing yourself and following your heart. This is important because once you accept every part of yourself, you will be able to do more, see more, and become more. You are you, and you are cool with that because it is you and you are not going to change. More apparent in society today are people with eating disorders, getting plastic surgery, working jobs that they hate, marrying people for the wrong reasons, etc. They are not doing this for themselves; they are doing it for other people. Authenticity is all about loving you for you, but so many people find that hard to do. It is important to please others, but the main person in your life should be you! If people don’t try to deny their passions, then they will be more likely to follow them. Whatever you like to do, do it! If something really is a life-long dream, then you will never give up and you will keep striving until you have accomplished it. In order to be awesome you must first accept yourself, and once you do, it will change your life. So whatever you love, pursue it. You are the only person who is living your life. Why do we even bothering impressing other people in the first place?

Neil Pasricha is a very effective speaker because of the tone of his voice. He does not talk as if he is giving a lecture, but as if he is having a conversation. He speaks at just the right pace, and his words flow smoothly together. He only says a couple of ums and uhs, but they were not in the middle of a sentence (it was where a natural break in his talking was). Having him tell personal stories really made his topic stand out because it made it personal. He was talking from past experiences, as opposed to talking just from facts and learning from other people. His slide show of family photos made the presentation even better by giving the people something to relate to.

One big question that arises after I watched this TED video is why do people only ever see the negative in their lives? Why do they only see the flaws, and not the assets? Why do they not see the awesome in the simple? And how can we change this so that they do?