Trade One Hour of Your Day
if you had one extra day in your hour to
trade with anybody
who would it be there are
7.8 billion people on this world
so how do you possibly choose just one
who would you choose would it be a
multi-billionaire
like jeff bezos maybe it would be
someone in the field that you were
interested in going into i don’t know
for me that might be like an astronaut
or something
if i were to trade an hour of my life
with someone i would want to be with
someone that has a very different
lifestyle for me
i would not trade my hour for rich and
fame
but instead i would trade it to really
understand the hardships that some
people in our world face
i grew up in a white middle class family
suburban town
both my parents work in the school
district i have an older sister we were
both three sport athletes
we lived the most typical
american dream lifestyle
we didn’t have to worry about the next
meal on the table or where we were going
to sleep
i slept in my own room and honestly for
the most part when we wanted things we
just got it
i didn’t have to be feared for the
i didn’t have to fear being judged for
my heritage
or for my background or even just if i
could walk home
safely one of the things that i’ve
learned as i grew up from an innocent
child to a young adult
although my mother might disagree with
the whole innocent part
is how fortunate i was to have these
privileges
most of our country nonetheless the
world
aren’t able to grow up with these same
things and i think that you it’s easy to
recognize that
i don’t think you really truly ever
understand it
until you’re actually in that position
when the question of who i would trade
an hour with was opposed to me
i immediately thought of the old idiom
that you constantly hear in grade school
to walk a mile in another person’s shoes
yes you could certainly walk a mile in
jeff bezos shoes and probably
learn a lot about his life but
he’s just not really the type of person
that needs to become
more understood in our society in a
society where we’re constantly trying to
become more inclusive and more fair
a lot of these equity conversations are
being held by people that have never
been on the unfair side of it
personally when i’m fortunate enough to
participate in these conversations i
feel as if my place
is to sit back and listen and really
just try to gain a fuller perspective
of what other people have to experience
i think that doing this switch could
only magnify
that effect tenfold
imagine if you lived in the middle east
constantly
seeking exile from war imagine living in
the deserts of africa
not knowing where or when your next meal
or drink of clean water will come from
imagine living in the streets of detroit
not knowing if you could walk home from
school
safely now imagine being
warren buffett jeff bezos elon musk
not worrying about anything other than
if your companies are going to
astronomical numbers
they don’t have to worry about those
same basic human needs like
so many other people in our society have
to
by trading your hour to become rich and
famous
you would simply be implying that money
makes you happy
and if you’ve ever read or watched the
great gatsby you
know that that’s not true
by trading with someone who’s in a less
fortunate position you’re going to be
able to better understand them and
you’re going to be able to understand
their perspective and the things that
they go through the things that they
struggle with
and therefore you’re going to be a
better advocate for them in equity
conversations
ultimately bettering everybody if you
traded lives with
elon musk i can’t imagine that you’d
have much of a positive impact on his
life or yours
other than the fact that you have like
free teslas and rockets for an hour
a few years ago i traveled to aruba and
learned a lot from the trip
uh if you’ve ever been to aruba you know
like you go you expect to be this
tropical paradise
uh then if you leave the strip you
immediately
run into a desert with mud homes
stray dogs and a whole bunch of cacti
so we got there got off the plane got
our car started driving
immediately got lost we
thought it was like a sketchy area we
didn’t really know where we were again
we were expecting tropical paradise
um but some lady came up to her car
window and she asked where we were going
we told her and she goes okay follow me
um
we’re a little bit skeptical but we also
knew that that was our best chance of
finding our hotel instead of just
driving around in circles so we followed
her
15 minutes of back roads detours dirt
roads
um got there we got to our hotel
perfectly fine
she didn’t even wait long enough for us
to say
thank you or give her money for her
kindness or anything
she just drove away
in america if someone goes out of their
way to help you
i don’t know say jump your car they
almost expect something they almost
expect money in return
and aruba just wasn’t like that they
found joy in helping people
they found joy and just genuine
connections with other people
the biggest smile that i’ve ever
received from anybody in my life was
when i
uh said to a waitress the words masha
danke
which is the local term for thank you
i thought it was so simple i didn’t
think anything of it
i thought i was just being respectful
but to her
it showed someone taking time out of
their day
to learn her culture and that’s the
thing there is
i learned that you don’t really need
materialistic things at
all to be happy and it’s not that i had
this huge revelation and i had
always thought that money drives
happiness before i went to aruba
but that was the first place that i’ve
ever seen people really exhibit just
a joy for life and money not driving it
i learned that all you need is genuine
connection and
appreciation for the smaller things in
life
so why would you want to trade your hour
just for money and something that’s so
superficial
when instead you could do something that
would benefit
so much of society
part of the thing with switching an hour
with someone is that they would also
have to live in my life for an hour
and i know exactly what you’re thinking
right if i’m putting them in my position
that means i’m putting them in a more
fortunate position
for an hour just to rip it away from
them that’s exactly what i’m preaching
against that’s exactly what i’m saying
we shouldn’t be doing right
here’s the thing i think it could
actually be motivating
think about it if you were in the lowest
socioeconomic class in america
and you just got a little bit of a taste
of middle class living
wouldn’t you work as hard as possible to
get back to that and to provide that for
your future generations
but if i switched lives with elon musk
and
wouldn’t he understand middle class
living better and then maybe i’ll be
pushed to achieve his level of
prosperity
yeah probably but nobody really
needs to be that wealthy and also the
middle class is just the largest
socio-economic class by far and it’s not
the group of people that needs to become
more
understood in our society
then top of that the the jump from lower
class to middle class is just far more
vast and far more necessary
than the jump from middle to upper class
so it really isn’t necessary for me to
be
pushed to try to achieve his level of
prosperity
like i said i think that there’s a
benefit on both sides of this for many
reason
and that’s why i think it’s the most
beneficial switch possible
if this switch were possible if i were
able to do this i would want to live the
full life of the person i’m switching
with
or at least as much as i can in an hour
i
truthfully i would love to spend more
than an hour i’d love to spend weeks
and really really understand i would
want to
understand the hardships that they face
every single day
i would want to know what they feel how
they think
how they go through every single day
with the odds constantly stacked against
them at every single
term again
i feel like by understanding that i’ll
be a better
participant in equity conversations and
i’ll be a better advocate
i also think that this switch would make
me much more humble and much more
appreciative of
things i would certainly worry a lot
less about what i could have
or the things that i want and just kind
of sit here and
soak in what’s in front of me at the
very moment
i also think that this change
uh could help me get just a better
perspective
on humankind as a whole it’s commonly
stated by astronauts i know i’m bringing
astronauts up again
commonly stated uh first time that they
see earth
from outer space completely raw
and borderless that they have this
different feeling this undescribable
feeling where
they realize we are one species
that’s sharing one home they don’t see
color
they don’t see background they don’t see
money
they don’t see borders we are one group
of people
i think that this switch could have that
same effect
i think that by living the life of
someone else i’ll understand how
similar we all really are and no it’s
not that
i think that money drives have or money
defines a person before
the switch happens but you’re just
always more apt to be drawn towards the
people that are
similar to you and
i think that this would be an
opportunity to break that mold
and really understand how similar
everybody
really is
you can switch your hour with anybody in
this world it’s your decision it’s your
hour
i think that the most beneficial switch
would be with someone less fortunate i
would understand how to find true
happiness
i would hopefully be able to motivate
someone to
provide for their future generations and
achieve a level of prosperity that
is more livable as
my my family as well as probably all of
yours
years back at some point were probably
all in that position as well
i would also gain like i said a much
greater perspective
on the world as a whole
if you are going to trade your life an
hour of it
with one of the 7.8 billion people
on this earth it better benefit as many
of those 7.8 billion people as possible
because time is way too precious of a
virgin to waste
so the next time that you sit down and
you imagine
being your favorite movie star your
favorite actor or a favorite musician
instead imagine a life that’s much
harder than yours
instead of sitting down and watching the
office or family guy maybe watch a
documentary
if you have free time give back to the
community around you
although you can’t physically trade
lives with someone
what you can do is you can be the most
beneficial
member to society as you possibly can
if you can do all this in one hour just
imagine
what you could do with 25. thank you