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TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-06-09
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgoEgonx3U
no one really knows what the world is going to look like thirty twenty or even ten years from now if history repeats itself which he usually does one day someone will be examining the way we've chosen to construct our society and many of our social norms today may just very well be ridiculous things of the past so I want to take a moment observe our world
society we've created and %HESITATION talk about it what kind of things would you have to say now I would love to come up here and talk to you guys about religion or politics or music or sports sadly I'm not an expert in any of those fields anyone who seemed to go jump shot to tell you that now I decided to analyze the world from the perspective
of a teenager I wanted to find that one problem one issue which dealt with correctly may just change the world it's a big job so where do I start I turned to a friend a friend who has never let me down in the past and as long as I can remember a friend who has always been right I turned to Google and Google told me well
I searching Google biggest problems for in under a second I was hit with over sixteen million results I was bombarded with articles like prop talk problems teens face and %HESITATION teenage hurdles life as a teen a I quickly found that things like self esteem self belief and a lack of self fulfillment where some of the larger issues now it should come as surprise anyone teenagers can
be insecure but %HESITATION one thing I found interesting was a lot of teenagers are too insecure talk about their dreams a lot of young people don't feel comfortable talking but the person they aspire to be at first I don't understand but I quickly remembered %HESITATION conversation I was having with my family at the breakfast table in London I want somewhere %HESITATION my parents were discussing my
stance towards school and I told them my GPA is fine I think really rigorous courses and I have a nice looking transcript the usual regurgitated responses they are felt that my issue wasn't my production at school or the quality of my work it was that I do lack the passion to be taking my courses that ambitions like go to school and I completely understand a big
reason why I went to school like many chains was for AP credits and a good looking track so in this point so at this point the conversation my father asked me what exactly do you see yourself doing fifteen years from now given the same response I'd been giving since I was in the fifth grade out to be a lawyer but at this point my sister burst
out laughing what could possibly be so funny I said I was suppose to be a lawyer at least a hundred thousand times why was this time any different when she is able to get her breath back my parents asked what was up the laughing and she replied he's too embarrassed to tell you he would rather be a rapper now this point my face went red I'd
never known my sis it's investing like that before and the conversation went on my dad continued and he asked me okay the message of a question what would you be doing fifteen years from now if you can do absolutely anything I I because no one had ever asked me that before I didn't know for the most part I knew I didn't want to be I didn't
want to be unhappy I don't wanna be struggling financially and I guess I just wanted to feel a sense of significance I was really struggling to answer the question because I think we've all been asked what do you want to do in the future that's different than being completely hypothetically ask will you be doing absolutely anything so I started thinking about my significance and I don't
want anyone else to tell me I was significant anyone my significance to be quantified to bank accounts or Facebook friends are degrees I've wanted to match my own definition of what it means to be significant and just reached the significance I dream of because in a world with seven billion people it can be kind of hard to make a name for yourself but I'm not the
only one struggling with my dream which brings me to the center my talk ladies and gentlemen I believe that we live in a world in which she has become the norm for us to accept that one's dream is unobtainable unreasonable for unrealistic just off the basis that people say so but that is not a conclusion that came from a time on Google no over the past
few months I've been conducting research to figure out what teenagers think about it as far as goals dreams the future the purpose of life water we as individuals here to achieve so the first thing I had to do was establish an audience I wanted my audience to be enriched with enough Diversey to make life credible I wanted people of different age groups people who practice different
religions people who not only came from different countries who were raised in different countries eventually I was able to survey hundreds of teenagers from around the world okay an audience what kind of questions they can ask them I decided to start with the two questions that changed my whole mode of thinking that one conversation at the breakfast table first what do you see yourself doing fifteen
years from now eight percent of people didn't know seventy eight percent seventy eight percent found themselves choosing one of three occupations seventy eight percent felt that fifteen years from now they were going to be a doctor a lawyer or an engineer so what do I do I jot down the names of all the lawyers because you never know when that can come in handy no this
isn't my first reaction was seventy percent three jobs really does but I quickly remembered since the fifth grade I myself that I was going to be a lawyer I was in the fifth grade I didn't know anything about law but when I said I want to be a lawyer I got a good reaction from people I thought good saying it it seemed interesting I know I
have to do is talking so why was this number so high with thousands of honorable professional jobs out there why do people feel that they needed to be one of three I believe it is because of the norms that society is created we've put emphasis on certain jobs and we as kids or young adults feel that we should we should want these type of jobs for
ourselves I member when I was about seven or eight I came across this game and I love this game it's caught some of you may know it's called the game of life right is a recreation of the classical and game of life and me my cousins would play this all the time see the reason I love this game it's not just because I always win the
reason I love it is because like life your status in the game always changing there's tons of ways that you can win at the game but the easiest is to have a lot of kids pay your debt off early in the game and save a lot of cash now who can guess the three top paying jobs in the game of life they were doctors lawyers and
engineers now that's just one really small really specific example but you don't need to play the same board games I going up to agree with me that society has put a large emphasis and what kind of jobs we should want for ourselves and the emphasis is created through the media through education and your family so the second question I asked it was the question that change
my mode of thinking we would establish that seventy percent of people felt the need to occupy one of three jobs and who would you think if I stay here today and I told you the majority of them would rather be doing something else next question I asked was what would you be doing fifteen years from now if you can do absolutely anything I found that seventy
eight percent of people and are changing their answer now I wanna make this really clear it's not the same seventy eight percent that felt that they need to occupy one of the three more popular it's seventy percent of the original group for example out of eight percent of the people who answer the first question not knowing what they saw themselves doing a lot of them were
able to acknowledge rinsing question %HESITATION that's what I would want to do and other answers that stayed the same to twenty two percent whose answer stay the same to the questions the most common job with Dr so I thought that was great people were saying they think I'm see myself doing fifteen years from now is the one thing I want to be doing so what do
I do with that I jot down the names of all the doctors because you never know when a good doctor Michael now here's why this is alarming first we established that we live in a society where people going up feel they need to occupy one of three jobs in order to become successful then we establish that they'd rather be doing something else from a young age
they're able to differentiate between what they want to do and what they see themselves doing they're able to come to the decision that this is the one thing I want to do in this world this one minute you they've decided for whatever reason that one thing is unobtainable so with this in mind Idaho second set of questions I wanted to ask but I did put out
a survey this time I did talk to hundreds and hundreds of kids I want to be more involved more personal so I literally went around the school for three days laptop in my backpack and I would stop people randomly whether they were friends or strangers I would see if that a couple minutes before class to take my survey and how let me interview them so began
the interview why do you go to school now I was hoping for to get an education which I mean I got this was pretty much that in all of the conversations but one thing I was surprised see that came up quite a bit was things lie forced to go and because I have to okay I continued what do you want to do with your education so
at this point everyone was giving me the same answers it word there were tons of defense is that basically revolves around the idea that I need my education in order to become successful but then success was defined by raising a family and having a lot of money okay teach their own my next question if this is what you believe to be success raising a family and
have a lot of money you need education to do that what is it that you would want your children to achieve I was hoping for answers like I want my son change the world I want my daughter to leave a mark on history those are not the answer I got the most common thing that was said was only how to be happy this is great but
when asked more specifically what do you want your child to achieve I got answers like I want my son to get a good education and what my daughter to make enough money for himself I was starting to see a cycle really boarding psycho so we live in a world where dreams take a backseat to job security and passion come second to production so are we living
to live are we living to clock out are we just repeating the cycle so with this in mind I basin comes the conclusion that okay kids all around the world had given up on their dreams and only reason we spent our entire youth attending school was so that we can one day make enough money retire and the teacher can still do the same great this is
all leading me kind of sad I was told myself one Lawrence it's not too late and you talk about sports the next day I got cut from my school's basketball team I decided no who is sticking with the stock so at this point I had one more set of questions I was going to dances too I put out another serving this time completely anonymous and from
my survey their two questions I really one shows yesterday the first question do your parents know your dreams fifty six percent check the box indicating yes which left forty four percent of these parents not knowing what the child's dreams now twenty four percent of the kids said no because my parents have never asked me they've never shown interest in my dream and the twenty percent felt
that no because even though my pants are shown interest maybe they'd ask me they brought up I don't feel comfortable I found this very alarming I hope off the basis of my talk alone these type of statistics could improve whether I'm interviewing hundreds of kids or I'm just talking to someone who lives in your house how these conversations so then next question I asked in a
world was seven billion people do you believe that you are significant forty three percent of the people to my survey felt no my life holds no significance now the definition of what it means to be significant is different for every person one person might say being significant is having the entire world no my name and when something happens to me everyone knows why another person I
say to be significant you just need to be meaningful to two or three people the people sitting at your table the definition of significance varies between individual but that is not what you need to take into account when you look at this what you need to take into account is the people answering my questions our kids some as young as fourteen starting their first year high
school freshman when did we get to the point where fourteen year olds we're giving up on their dreams and deciding that my life was not significant it was all frankly pressing we live in a world where it's not realistic an extremely high miss that's considered failure it's it's not smart to do that I for one believe you don't fail when you aim high and you miss
you felt when you aim low and you hit failure community you failure family and you fail yourself because from the young age of fourteen when you have your entire life ahead of you you come to the conclusion you make the decision that you are not going to reach your full you are not going to achieve what you could achieve we live in a world where instead
of being special one in a million we've all heard the phrase before special one in a million we sit back blend into the crowd of the other seven billion tax is about ideas were spreading Matt my idea changing your mind set what if we lived in a world where everyone believe they can be significant what if we believe in a world where kids go to school
because they want to go to school I for one want to live in a world where if you ask my child what's the difference between your dreams and your goals he says nothing because I'm young I'm ambitious and I have my whole life ahead of me to achieve what I wish to achieve to change our social norms that would take a movement a movement that requires
all of us it's not hard you just and to turn on the switch don't be so quick to doubt your neighbors don't be so quick to doubt yourself and don't be so quick to doubt your significance if there's one thing I want my talk to achieve it's that I hope anyone watching this take this into consideration and asks the questions I've asked today how the conversations