stay in 17 17 JoyceTEDx

hi

i’m george an 18 years old singer and

songwriter based in taiwan

i’m one of the tad usb here today but

before i start my speech

i want to ask you a question

what do you expect to hear from 18 years

old

well look i’m 18 not 18. i’m simply a

high school student who loves to sing

and write songs and the reason i’m still

singing and writing is because my mom

said i’m good at it so yeah

i’m not going to pretend to be some

perfect role model because that is

definitely

not who i am i’m standing here today

is to share the story of my seventeen

with you guys

and how i just wanna stay in 17 forever

so let’s get into it well about two

years ago

i was studying 10th grade in taiwan girl

senior high school which is where we are

right now

suffering from school pressure and

endless exam i was basically one of

those straight c

students and nothing i did was helping

the situation

and there’s a scenario she came up and

she told me

if you can change the environment change

yourself

if you can change your environment

change yourself

have any of you heard a sentence before

show me your hand show me your hand if

you have

look like some of you have heard this

before

well this sentence in chinese will say

but i always found there is one little

flaw in this concept

is that when people heard about this

sentence most of them

will jump right into the changes apart

we won’t even consider to change the

environment because it sounds

complicated

and unrealistic and that’s when it hit

me

well i gotta at least try to change the

environment before

i give up on myself right

and um speaking of my environment back

then

i was at school yeah of course i was at

school where else i could be right

and that is a problem you see i spent

almost 10 hours per day

in school but when i’m at school

there’s always so many things are going

on at the same time i don’t really have

time

to experience life and figure out who i

am or what i want

i don’t really have myself

that is a moment when i found out that i

might need to take a break

and live my life a little more also

the moment i started panicking

does that mean i gotta give up on school

now or like should i study home school

myself

from now on without how people are gonna

see me

i mean my friend my family or

my neighbors yeah my neighbors could be

a problem

so after i spent some time to carry

myself down and also having discussion

with my parents and my teachers

i get on my courage i made a huge

decision

i decided to drop out of high school for

one year

to see where you can take me and i’m not

gonna lie

this decision i made had changed my

whole universe

completely in a good way

it really changed me in a good way you

see after i dropped out i’ve got plenty

of time to try new things that i’m

actually into i started writing my own

music

and i started singing at several

restaurants i got my own busking license

and also i built my own homemade

recording studio

i’ve done tons of amazing things

throughout the whole year since i

finally got time to actually listen to

my own voice

but mentally and physically

and one of the highlights throughout the

whole year was during the time i stand

at a restaurant

i experienced some bright side of the

society as i’ve always been

but i also found some dark side too an

unforgettable one was when a restaurant

manager

he fired me through a simple text in

three am in the morning

and then he just blocked me from the

whole work group he told me that i was

too young to sing

even though i’ve been working there for

almost half an year

i didn’t even tell my parents that i was

getting fired because i feel

kind of ashamed of it and now they know

i kept asking myself that what did i do

wrong or am i not good enough to be a

singer or am i not special enough to be

a performer

but then all of a sudden all the

anxiousness

and desperation actually ended up

letting me to write my first song

which is discovered by this record level

that i’m working with right now

so it’s like a dream right who knows

that getting fire is actually a blessing

in disguise

and that is how i learned a huge lesson

in my 17

which is life is unpredictable but every

can keep listening to your own voice and

follow your heart

things will always ended up right

because the difference between listening

to your voice

and listening to others is that yours

will never betray you seventeen

oh please don’t please don’t let back it

instead

maybe one more day just stay

this is a song i wrote called stage 17

also my debut single

but as soon as 17 is not simply about to

stay in the age of 17.

it is actually about to stay in a

mindset to remain

a passion and to remind me to always

listen to my own voice like when i was

and i believe that all of us must have

this one precious period

when we were all still listening to my

own voice to listen to our own voice

without any hesitation and for me

it was in my 17 and you can find your 17

too

so at the end of my speech i have one

last sentence to say

that could conclude all the words i’ve

said today

and that is a quote from the book the

alchemist

which is remember

that wherever your heart is there you

will

find your treasure i’m joyce thank you

for listening