The economic injustice of plastic Van Jones

so the awesome story it begins about 40

years ago when my mom and my dad came to

Canada my mom left Nairobi Kenya

my dad left a small village outside of

Amritsar India and they got here in the

late 1960s they settled in the shady

suburb about an hour east of Toronto and

they settled into a new life they saw

their first dentists they ate their

first hamburger and they had their first

kids my sister and I grew up here and we

had quiet happy childhoods we had close

family good friends I’m quiet street we

grew up taking for granted a lot of the

things that my parents couldn’t take for

granted when they grew up things like

power always on in our houses things

like schools across the street in

hospitals down the road and popsicles in

the backyard

we grew up and we grew older I went to

high school I graduated I moved out of

the house I got a job I found a girl I

settled down and I realized that sounds

like a bad sitcom or a Cat Stevens song

but life was pretty good life was pretty

good 2006 was a great year under clear

blue skies in July in the wine region of

Ontario I got married starting to buy

150 family and friends 2007 was a great

year I graduated from school and I went

on a road trip with two of my closest

friends here’s a picture of me and my

friend Chris on the coast of the Pacific

Ocean we actually saw seals out of our

car window and we pulled over to take a

quick picture of them and then block

them with our giant heads so you can’t

actually see him but it was breathtaking

believe me 2008 2009 were a little

tougher I know that they were tougher

for a lot of people not just me first of

all the news was so heavy it’s still

heavy now and it was heavy before that

but you know when you flip open a

newspaper when you turned on the TV it

was about ice caps melting wars going on

around the world earthquakes hurricanes

in an economy that was wobbling on the

brink of collapse and then eventually

did collapse and so many of us losing

our homes or our jobs or our retirements

or our livelihoods 2008 2009 were heavy

years for me for another reason - I was

going through a lot of personal problems

at the time my marriage wasn’t going

well and we just were growing further

and further apart

one day my wife came home from work and

summoned the courage through a lot of

tears to have a very honest conversation

and she said I don’t love you anymore

and it was one of the most painful

things that ever heard and certainly the

most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard

until only a month later when I heard

something even more heartbreaking my

friend Chris so I just showed you a

picture of had been battling mental

illness for some time and for those of

you whose lives have been touched by

mental illness you know how challenging

it can be I spoke to him on the phone at

10:30 p.m. on

Sunday night we talked about the TV show

we watched that evening and Monday

morning I found out that he disappeared

very sadly he took his own life and it

was a really heavy time and as these

dark clouds were circling me and I was

finding it really really difficult to

think of anything good I said to myself

that I really needed a way to focus on

the positive somehow so I came home from

work one night and I logged onto the

computer and I started up a tiny web

site called 1,000 songs calm I was

trying to remind myself of the simple

universal little pleasures that we all

love but we just don’t talk about enough

things like waiters and waitresses who

bring your free refills without asking

being the first table to get called up

to the dinner buffet at a wedding

wearing warm underwear from just out of

the dryer or when cashiers opened up the

new checkout lane at the grocery store

you get to be first in line even if

you’re laughs at the other line swoop

right in there

and you know slowly over time I started

putting myself in a better mood

I mean fifty thousand blogs are started

a day and so my blog was just one of

those fifty thousand and nobody read it

except for my mom although I should say

that my traffic did skyrocket and go up

by a hundred percent when she forwarded

it to my dad

and then I got excited when it started

getting tens of hits and then I started

getting excited when I started getting

dozens and then hundreds and then

thousands and then millions started

getting bigger and bigger and bigger and

then I got a phone call and the voice of

the other and the line said you just won

the best blog in the world award I was

like that sounds totally fake which

African country do you want me to wire

all my money to

but turns out I jumped on a plane and I

ended up walking a red carpet between

Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Fallon and

Martha Stewart and I went on stage to

accept a Webby Award for Best blog and

the surprise and the you know just the

amazement of that was only overshadowed

by my return to Toronto when in my inbox

10 literary agents were waiting for me

to talk about putting this into a book

flash forward to the next year and the

book of Awesome has now been on number

one on the bestseller list for 20

straight weeks

well okay I said I wanted to do three

things today I said I wanted to tell you

the awesome story I wanted to share with

you the three A’s of Awesome and I

wanted to leave you with the closing

thought so let’s talk about those three

A’s

over the last few years I haven’t had

that much time to really think but

lately I have had the opportunity to

take a step back and ask myself you know

what is it over the last few years that

sort of helped me grow my website but

also grow myself and I’ve summarized

those things for me personally as three

A’s they are attitude awareness and

authenticity let me just talk about each

one briefly so attitude look we’re all

gonna get lumps and we’re all going to

get bumps none of us can predict the

future but we do know one thing about it

and that’s that it ain’t gonna go

according to plan we will all have high

highs and big days and proud moments of

smiles on graduation stages

father-daughter dances at weddings and

healthy babies screeching in the

delivery room but between those high

highs we may also have some lumps in

some bumps too it’s sad and you know

it’s it’s not pleasant to talk about but

you know your husband might leave you

your girlfriend could cheat your

headaches might be more serious than you

thought or your dog could get hit by a

car on the street it’s not a happy

thought but your kids could get mixed up

in gangs or bad scenes your mom could

get cancer your dad could get mean and

there are times in life when you will be

tossed down the well too with twists in

your stomach and with holes in your

heart and when that bad news washes over

you and when that paint sponges and

soaks in

I just really hope you feel like you’ve

always got two choices one you can swirl

and twirl in gloom and doom forever or

two you can grieve and then face the

future with newly sober eyes having a

great attitude is about choosing option

number two and choosing no matter how

difficult it is no matter what pain hits

you choosing to move forward and move on

and take baby steps into the future the

second day is awareness

I love hanging out with three-year-olds

I love the way that they see the world

because they’re seeing the world for the

first time I love the way that they can

stare at a bug crossing the sidewalk I

love the way that they’ll stare

slack-jawed at the first baseball game

with wide eyes and a mitt on their hand

soaking in the crack of the bat and the

crunch of the peanuts and the smell of

the hot dogs I love the way that looks

spent hours picking dandelions in the

backyard and putting them into a nice

centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner I

love the way that they see the world

because they’re seeing the world for the

first time having a sense of awareness

is just about embracing your inner

three-year-old because you all used to

be three years old

that three old boy is still part of you

that three year old girl is still part

of you but they’re in there and being

aware it’s just about remembering that

you saw everything you’ve seen for the

first time once too so there was a time

when it was your first time ever hitting

a string of green lights on the way home

from work there was there was the first

time you walked by the open door of a

bakery and snow smelled the bakery air

or the first time you pulled a $20 bill

out of your old jacket pockets that

found money the last day is authenticity

and for this one I want to tell you a

quick story let’s go all the way back to

1932 when on a peanut farm in Georgia a

little baby boy named Roosevelt Grier

was born there is no career or rosey

Grier’s people used to call him grew up

and grew into 300 pounds 6 foot 5

linebacker in the NFL he’s number 76 in

the picture here he is pictured with the

fearsome foursome these are four guys in

the LA Rams from the 1960s you did not

want to go up against they were tough

football players doing what they love

which was you know crushing skulls and

separating shoulders on the football

field but rosey Grier also had another

passion in his deep deeply authentic

self he also loved needlepoint

he loved he looked knitting he said that

it calmed him down it relaxed him it

took away his fear of fly and helped him

meet chicks I mean he loved it so much

that after he retired from the NFL he

started joining clubs and he even put

out a book called rosey Grier’s

needlepoint for Men

a great cover he’s actually if he’d

notice he’s actually needle pointing his

own face and so what I love about this

story is that rosey Grier is just such

an authentic person and that’s what

authenticity is all about it’s just

about being you and being cool with that

and I think when you’re authentic you

end up following your heart and you put

yourself in places and situations and in

conversations that you love and that you

enjoy you meet people that you like

talking to you go places you’ve dreamt

about and you end up following your

heart and feeling very fulfilled so

those are the three A’s for the closing

thought I want to take you all the way

back to my parents coming to Canada no I

I don’t know what it would feel like

coming to a new country when you’re in

your mid-20s I don’t know because I

never did it but I would imagine that it

would take a great attitude I would

imagine that you’d have to be pretty

aware of your surroundings and

appreciating the small wonders that

you’re starting to see in your new world

and I think you’d have to be really

authentic you’d have to be really true

to yourself in order to get through what

you’re being exposed to I’d like to

pause my TED talk for about 10 seconds

right now because you don’t get many

opportunities in life to do something

like this and my parents are sitting in

the front row so I want to ask them to

if you don’t mind stand up and just I

want to say thank you to you guys

when I was growing out my dad uses love

telling the story of his first day in

Canada and it’s a great story because

what happened was he got off the plane

at the Toronto Airport and he was

welcomed by a non-profit group which I’m

sure someone in this room runs and and

this nonprofit group had a big welcoming

lunch for all the new immigrants to

Canada my dad says he got off he got off

the plane he went to this lunch and

there was this huge spread there was

bread there was those little mini dill

pickles

it was olives those little white onions

there was a rolled-up turkey cold cuts

rolled-up ham cold cuts rolled up roast

beef cold cuts and little cubes of

cheese there was tuna salad sandwiches

and egg salad sandwiches and salmon

salad sandwiches there was lasagna there

was casseroles

there was brownies there was butter

tarts and there was pies lots and lots

of pies and what my dad tells the story

he says the craziest thing was I’ve

never seen any of that before except

bread I don’t know what was meat always

vegetarian I was eating olives with pie

you know I just I just couldn’t believe

how many things you can get here when I

was when I was five years old my dad

used to take me grocery shopping and he

would stare and wonder at the little

stickers that are on the fruits and

vegetables he would say look can you

believe they have a mango here from

Mexico they’ve got an apple here from

South Africa can you believe they got a

date from Morocco

he’s like do you know where Morocco even

is

and I’d say I’m five I don’t even know

where I am

just ANP and he’d say I don’t know where

Morocco is either well let’s find out

and so we’d buy the day and we’d go home

and we’d actually take an atlas off the

shelf and we’d flip through until we

found this mysterious country and when

we did my dad would say can you believe

someone climbed a tree over there pick

this thing off it put it in the truck

drove it all the way to the docks and

then sailed it all the way across the

Atlantic Ocean and then put it in

another truck and drove that all the way

to a tiny grocery store just outside our

house so that they can sell it to us for

25 cents that’s I I don’t believe that

he’s like I don’t believe it either

things are amazing there’s just so many

things to be happy about when I stop to

think about it he’s absolutely right

there are so many things to be happy

about there we are you know the only

species on the only life-giving rock in

the entire universe that we’ve ever seen

capable of experiencing so many of these

things I mean we’re the only ones with

architecture and agriculture we’re the

only ones with jewelry and democracy

we’ve got airplanes highway lanes

interior design and horoscope signs

we’ve got fashion magazines house party

scenes you can watch a horror movie with

monsters you can go to a concert hears

guitars jamming we’ve got books buffets

and radio waves wedding brides and

rollercoaster rides you can sleep and

clean sheets you can get go to the

movies and get good seats you can smell

bakery air and walk around with rain

hair pop bubble wrap or taking a legal

map we got all that but we only got a

hundred years to enjoy it that’s the sad

part the cashiers at your grocery store

the foreman at your planet the guy

tailgating you home on the highway the

telemarketer calling you during dinner

every teacher you’ve ever had everyone

that’s ever woken up beside you every

politician in every country every actor

in every movie every single person in

your family everyone you love everyone

in this room and you will be dead in a

hundred years

life is so great that we only get such a

short time to experience and enjoy all

those tiny little moments that make it

so sweet and that that moment is right

now and those moments are counting down

and those moments are always always

always fleeting you will never be as

young as you are right now and that’s

why I believe that if you live your life

with a great attitude choosing to move

forward and move on whenever life deals

you a blow living with a sense of

awareness of the world around you

embracing your inner three-year-old and

seeing the tiny joys that make life so

sweet and being authentic to yourself

being you and being cool with that

letting your heart lead you and putting

yourself in experiences that satisfy you

but I think you live a life that is rich

and it’s satisfying and I think you live

a life that is truly awesome thank you