Redefining Discomfort A Courageous Choice of Hope

[Applause]

good afternoon everybody

i’m so glad and honored to be part of

this event speaking to you today

i would like to start my talk by asking

you probably the most random question

that you will ever get asked on this

event and that is

do you journal no but like actually do

you write down how your day was and your

thoughts your fears your goals

i do and it’s something i definitely

recommend but the reason why i’m

bringing it up

is because the source of my message

today is something that i wrote

two years ago on my journal so if you

would let me i would like to begin this

speech by

asking you by reading you actually this

journal entry

and hopefully the message behind it can

reach you in meaningful ways

so here it is this is from two years ago

wednesday morning end of august 2018.

mom wakes me up at six a.m it’s still

dark outside

but so is inside the lights of the room

are on yet

yet it feels dark it feels cold

i hear a knock on the door a lady walks

in she’s wearing scrubs and just holding

a clear plastic bag with some fluid

inside

and the word chemotherapy written on it

as you understand i’m not home

i haven’t been in a while nor will i

anytime soon for the past eight months

i’ve been in germany

receiving treatment for my cancer

i’m scared that i might never get the

chance to go home again

about two weeks ago i had a surgery

where they took out the tumor

and with it a third of my leg and my

knee and replace that whole thing with a

prosthesis which

if you think about i guess it’s kind of

cool that science can do that right now

right

i mean it’s kind of cool but the surgery

had complications

and my leg is now paralyzed

i don’t know if i will ever be able to

walk again

as the nurse removes the bandages around

my leg i scream out in agony

is there something that you can maybe

give her for the pain my mom asks

i’m sorry but but now she’s already

maxed out on morphine

there’s nothing else we can give her

right now the nurse replies

i close my eyes as tight as ever and

every cell of my body is just praying

and hoping and wishing

that when i open them again i’ll be home

and i won’t be in pain and i’ll be

getting ready for school just like

everybody else

but every time i open my eyes again the

picture does not change

god if you’re listening will it ever get

better

will i ever get better will the pain

never stop i mean

why doesn’t it stop

i feel trapped see that’s exactly what i

want to talk to you today about

feeling trapped see what i failed to

realize when i wrote that two years ago

was that even though i thought i was

trapped in my pain

in reality i was not trapped in the

discomfort of my body

but in the comfort of my mind see i was

trapped in fear

despair bound by worry and chain to

exhaustion

and why do i refer to these things as

comfort

well because they were in my comfort

zone

so my question to you today is this have

you ever felt trapped

in the comfort of your mind in your

insecurity your loneliness your

your weakness your fear and someone

else’s opinion about you

and what society expects you to be in

your regret your anxiety your doubt

and if yes how do you get out

see what i realized from my own

experience is that when you’re locked in

the prison cell of your own mind

the only way to escape and get out

is to redefine the bars of the cell

the borders that keep you locked in

see your border is your discomfort right

and whatever that discomfort might be

for you in your life

in order to redefine it we have to look

at the function

which it serves but you see in order to

find the purpose behind the pain

we need the specific perspective and so

today we will

explore this function of discovery by by

the perspective of three different words

these words are familiarity

fight and freedom these three simple

words today

will help us escape but let’s take it

from the beginning right

before we can begin to understand the

function of discomfort

we first need to overcome the threat of

familiarity

see when something is familiar it’s

common right and when something is

common

it’s comfortable but that’s a problem

and that’s a problem because when you

get so

familiar to comfort it then becomes

dysfunctional

see comfort does not challenge

familiarity does not fuel your faith it

does not supply your strength it does

not develop your determination

but what it does is this your comfort

controls

how you deal with your discomfort

because here’s what comfort tells you it

tells you

give up don’t have hope don’t take risks

it tells you worry have fear don’t chase

that dream don’t pursue that passion

or you can’t do that that’s impossible

and yet we listen to comfort and we

choose comfort and we run back to

comfort why

well because it’s easier

see living discouraged and bitter and

worried is easier so much easier than

holding on and fighting and trying

and a lot of times we settle for what’s

easier

for what works for what’s comfortable

because there’s no fear in familiarity

there’s no risk and see we are so scared

of the risk of hope

that we choose to become familiar

with our comfort zone but as a result

what we escape to becomes what we are

trapped in

think about it we escape to familiarity

right but the dysfunctionality of

comfort

traps us and that’s exactly what makes

it a threat

because it traps us in a state where we

choose what gives

comfort over what takes courage

and a lot of times we feel so trapped

that we start believing

that staying trapped is our only option

that staying depressed staying lonely

that staying bitter staying hopeless

is our only option but it’s not it never

is

there’s always a second option which

also happens to be

our second word see you can give up and

stay in your comfort zone

i don’t recommend it but you can do it

or

you can get out and fight and how do you

do that

well you choose to be brave that’s how

see being brave means pushing through

and persevering

despite the pain it means taking the

risk of hope

no matter how impossible it seems or how

difficult it gets

being brave means being bold enough to

pursue your passion

even when all the odds are against you

and it also means being resilient enough

to continue to fight even when you feel

like you’ve got no more fight

left in you see it’s about having the

unconditional trust that maybe someday

tomorrow will be better that maybe

there’s light at the end of this that

maybe there’s a reason for your struggle

a lot of people call that a delusion

i call it determination a lot of people

call it

false hope i call it faith

see it’s all about how you call it and

if you really think about it

redefining discomfort is truly all about

perspective

because once you see your story of

suffering

as a source of strength weakness is

transformed to power

but in order for that to happen you need

to be brave

now a lot of people’s reaction when i

tell them that is well easy for you to

say right

maybe you’re brave maybe that person is

brave but but what about me what do i do

i’m not brave i don’t feel brave

but see what i think a lot of people

don’t understand

is that brave is not something that you

are

by default it’s something that you

become

by choice nobody is intrinsically brave

but anybody can instantly become because

being brave is not

a feeling it’s a courageous choice

of hope

you see a lot of people’s reaction when

i tell them that the thing about being

brave

is that well maybe maybe that’s the case

but even if that’s the case

i’m not strong enough to make that

choice i’m not strong enough

you don’t have to be i’m not strong

enough either but i don’t have to be you

know why because that’s exactly

what it means to be brave that even

though i’m not strong enough

even though i’m not prepared enough and

equipped enough and ready enough

even though i’m scared and the odds are

against me and it seems

impossible i choose to keep going anyway

for the first six to seven months of my

treatment

i was on this very high dose extremely

aggressive chemotherapy protocol

where i would basically need to stay in

the hospital for 25 days every single

month

and 14 of those days would be spent in

the high risk intensive care isolation

ward

for the extremely immunocompromised

patients

for weeks i would be passed out

completely unconscious because of the

drugs

then all of a sudden get up wake up

throw up

and then fall back down and pass back

out again

one night i remember in particular i was

i was with my mom in the bathroom

and i remember i just looked up and i

stared at myself in the mirror

and i didn’t even recognize myself

i started crying and and you could smell

the chemotherapy in my tears

at some point i looked over at my mom

and i asked her

mom how did i get here

what happened to me where did i go

as we were walking back from the

bathroom i just i just stopped in the

middle of the hallway

i didn’t have the strength to take

another step

my mom she gave me a tight hugging and

as i stayed there in her arms crying

desperate i asked her mama how much

longer

do i have to hold on for

i can’t do this anymore i don’t

have to be in pain anymore i don’t have

to suffer anymore i just

i can’t take this any longer

and this didn’t only happen that one

night it happened during every night

of every chemotherapy and every night of

every surgery

to the point that it even became a thing

that our family would do would just stop

in the middle of the hallway

hug each other and cry together

stay brave that’s what i told myself

but i was so tired of fighting i was so

tired and so terrified

and the reason why i was so afraid to

continue to fight

was because i knew the things that i

would have to fight against

but stay brave that’s what i told myself

stay brave just for you can hold on just

for five more minutes please just

please five more minutes you can hold on

you can do it just five more minutes

i begged myself and so i stayed brave

for another

for five minutes and then after those

five minutes for another five and

another five

and another five and i got through a

year and a half of treatment

14 rounds of intense chemotherapy nine

surgeries

countless of sleepless nights five

minutes at a time

staying brave five minutes at a time

not because i was strong that was the

exact opposite i was not strong

i tried so hard to be strong but but my

hands had gone weary from holding on so

tight

and my soldiers had grown tired and weak

from just just

holding on and carrying this unbearable

weight of pain and suffering for so long

i was not strong i was weak helpless

lifeless powerless i was not

strong but the fact that i’m standing

here today the fact that every morning i

get to wake up go to school

sit in a classroom and talk about

electromagneticism

thermodynamics and the french revolution

the fact that there’s a breath in my

lungs and my heart’s still beating

it screams out that strength is not a

requirement

for survival you don’t need to be strong

enough to make it you don’t need to have

everything figured out

you don’t need to understand you don’t

need to pretend you don’t need to be

fearless

all you need to do is stay brave in the

face of that fear stay brave in the face

of the odds

stay brave in the face of impossible and

choose

to keep going anyway and yeah stepping

out of your comfort zone is difficult

staying brave is difficult choosing hope

and holding on to hope is difficult and

you know what

even getting out of bed in the morning

is difficult on some days

but you know what else it is on all days

worth it it’s worth it you might not see

it now while it’s difficult

that night i didn’t either that night i

was a mess

but watch this it was only in that mess

that a message of hope was being formed

and see it’s the message that makes the

mess worth it whatever that message

might be for you in your life

whether it’s a message of gratitude self

love appreciation kindness forgiveness

empathy compassion i don’t even know

but whatever it is the message makes the

mess worth it

the growth makes the pain worth it but

you see here’s the thing

that mess edge is only revealed when

you’re at the edge of your mess

when you’re ready to give up when you’re

ready to let go when you’re this close

to giving in but it’s up to you

it’s up to you to continue to fight it’s

up to you to stay brave and have hope

it’s up to you to not give up

and you know what happens when you don’t

give up

miracles not necessarily big ones maybe

maybe small everyday

miracles like waking up and getting out

of bed in the morning

with a breath in your lungs a beat in

your heart and a smile on your face

or going outside and feeling the warmth

of the sun on your skin

or seeing your family and giving them a

hug you know those are the kind of

miracles

that you start appreciating and noticing

when you redefine discomfort

perspective right but of course there

are

bigger miracles too like we can’t forget

about them we can’t ignore them

and in fact i would like to share one

such bigger miracle

with you today as i told you before for

a year and a half i was in germany for

treatment and so during that time my

my biggest goal or one of my biggest

goals was to to manage to fly home

just for a few days in between the

chemotherapy blocks and

take my finals pass and graduate like

that was like

my biggest goal all i thought about all

i looked forward to for months

but you see towards the end of may i got

admitted in the hospital with multiple

severe

infections and at that point i was

i was very very sick my bone marrow was

just done like my

my immune system was practically

non-existent my white blood cells were

not even detectable

i i needed blood and platelet

transfusions every few days i was

maxed out on morphine so many

antibiotics so many medications

injections like

the doctors didn’t know what else to

give me

but none of it worked i didn’t get

better i only got

worse and in fact i got so much worse

than

just a week before we were supposed to

fly home like the tickets we had the

tickets everything was ready

but just a week before we were supposed

to fly i did i got so much worse

the doctors told us that there was just

no way i would make it home

in time they said there was no way i

would survive the flight home

with that kind of an immune system

they said it was impossible for that

immune system

to regenerate that fast and like it was

like your immune system can go from zero

to ten in two days like

it was impossible so we canceled the

flight and

and i was devastated you know i lost all

strength and hope

to fight to keep trying

but the story is not over yet there was

one doctor

my oncologist who who didn’t give up on

me and i i interpreted that as a sort of

message from up above that the story’s

not over yet that

that is not over there’s more life to

believed

and to believe that i just can’t give up

yet

not yet and see because of that message

because of

that one doctor who kept fighting for my

dream

i chose to fight for it too to hope for

it too

and i truly believe that it was because

of that hope that two days

after they told us that traveling was

just impossible

there was a sudden increase in all of my

blood counts

and just two weeks later not only was i

back home i had already passed all my

finals and i was walking for the first

time in six months i was walking i had

been in a wheelchair

for like six seven months but now i was

walking still with a massive tumor

in my knee like pressing against my

bones every step i took

i could feel that tumor and yet i was

walking

across the stage of the school

auditorium

to receive my diploma but if you really

think about it

in reality that was just that wasn’t

just a walk across the stage

it was a walk across impossible that

night for everybody else was just

a random tuesday night right but for me

that night was

everything it was everything because it

showed me that anything is possible

if you’re determined enough and if

you’re brave enough

to keep fighting for it to keep hoping

for it because let’s be honest a lot of

times the only way that you can fight

is by holding on to hope and that’s okay

because that’s where our third word

comes in

freedom freedom from the chains of

hopelessness freedom

from the prison cell of our comfort zone

and freedom from the borders

that keep us locked in so how do you get

that freedom

i’m glad you asked i think it all come

down it all comes down

to this one single question

will you choose to stay trapped

or will you choose to stay brave

and before you answer that i want to

leave you off today with the words of

one of my surgeons

that i think are going to greatly affect

your answer

so this doctor he was the one who who he

was my surgeon here in greece the one

who performed my biopsy found my cancer

and we instantly became best friends and

like we’ve been best friends ever

since and so we were on the phone one

night talking and something had happened

and i was

i was very scared for my life at that

point and so we were talking on the

phone and

i told him about it and he told me to be

brave

and that was the first time that i had

heard of the thing of

you know being brave and at first i was

like you know what

and i remember i asked him i was like

can i

can i really be brave when i’m so afraid

when i’m so

tired when i’m so broken

can i really be brave then

and he paused for a minute and then he

told me you don’t get this do you

that’s the only time that you can be

brave

so i chose to be brave and to stay brave

the question is will you

thank you