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