Crossing My Own Rubicon
[Music]
[Applause]
every day
i want to wake up happy for most of my
life this has been a real struggle of
mine
and there wasn’t anything obvious that
was wrong i was always the happy smiling
kid that never seen me bothered by
anything
but in reality it was rather difficult
for me to express my emotions
like how exactly do you tell someone
you’re sad when all they ever expected
you is to be happy
and you don’t even know why you’re sad
well the truth was i really didn’t have
any confidence in myself
i didn’t believe in myself in any manner
i would often talk down on myself
you’re not good enough don’t even try
you’re going to fail it’s not worth it
and that’s how i lived most of my life
and it wasn’t good
but for more context let’s jump back to
last year
last year i lost a pretty significant
amount of weight in a pretty short
period of time about 60 pounds about
four months
so quite a bit what i noticed was i was
losing all this weight and i’ve looked
the best i’ve ever looked
but i still felt the same i still felt
fat and worthless it was my father who
actually asked me if i felt any
different my self-esteem was risen
and it hasn’t i still had the same
horrid opinion of myself
and i was so confused because i thought
this was the only thing from keeping me
from being happy
but it wasn’t but that’s when i started
connecting the dots
i wouldn’t be happy until x happened
i’ll be happy when i have more money
i’ll be happy when i lose the weight
i’ll be happy when i’m in a relationship
sound familiar
this is the point where i realized that
i was doing this to myself
i was the one creating my problems in my
own head and if i just
changed the expectation of the outcome
things would have went better for me
this is when i realized we all have the
ability to control our thoughts
we can’t get what ourselves get in our
own minds and that’s what’s called the
destructive power of negative thoughts
it seems like as are growing up we’re
all guided in a very specific direction
go to school get good grades go to
college get married
at some point make 100 make 600k a year
easy right then be happy that sounds
like easy right easy enough plan
well to me it just sounds like we’re
checking off boxes off a fabricated list
a list that i sure didn’t make and it’s
confusing to me
it doesn’t work for everyone because
there’s doctors and lawyers out there
right now who hate their lives and hate
their jobs
and resent their parents from making
them go to law or med school
but they can’t just drop out or give up
their whole career because it’s all they
did for the past 15 years
so their lives continue with resent and
regret
we pushed happiness into a place that’s
seemingly unattainable
if i get good grades on a test i need to
get better grades if i make good money i
need to make more money
if i have a good job i need a better job
this is the point where we don’t
understand where we’re going with our
lives we need to change
success and money into happiness
happiness needs to be our new north star
we just can’t be chasing success and
fame and money
our whole lives there’s millionaires out
there right now who are willing to trade
everything they have for five more years
to live
but they can’t so our lives end with so
much regret and resentment
and that’s truly sad i would argue money
is just a currency and that’s all it is
time is a much better one time is a
currency we spend every single day
we have to start living our lives with
more gratitude gratitude in simple terms
is just being thankful for what we have
around us
it’s so easy for us to get sucked into
all the bad and disheartening events
going on our lives
like turning on our phones or turning on
the tv and seeing
celebrities dying or entire continents
on fire
and that bogs us down that’s how most of
us start our everyday lives
it’s become the norm to turn on the tv
and see all these bad things
and that’s just priming us to have a bad
day if we continue doing this every
single day
it’s going to make the rest of our lives
horrible that’s no life to live
so i would encourage you tomorrow
morning before you turn on the tv before
you go on your phone
think of or write down or scream out
loud what you’re
most thankful for and with dedicated
time and practice you’ll start to notice
every little thing around you is
something to be grateful for
i wake up every single day so thankful
that i’m on this earth
that i was born just two seconds later i
may not have been me
and i could have been a completely
different person with a concluding
outlook on life
and morals but no i am who i am
and i’m enough i was given the
opportunity to be here
and i’m happy and grateful to be here
why wouldn’t i give my best shot
and this is how i live every day we also
need to stop focusing on the negatives
i see so much suffering from those who
only seek out negativity
and they end up chasing themselves in
circles trying to find the answers
it’s sickening what’s the worst part
about it is
i see so much potential in these people
so much potential that they don’t see
themselves
and they get so clouded that that with
one or two issues that they don’t see
their potential themselves
so it’s squandered there’s millions of
people out there who hate mondays
i’m sure there’s something here as well
just because they have to go back to a
job they hate
and so all they do is complain and
complain and complain about how much
they hate their job
and only live on the weekends well what
if i were to tell you that this was your
last monday on earth
do you still think you would complain
about how much you hate your job
no i don’t think you would you would
start trying to frantically try
try to call all the loved ones you have
and make all the plans for the things
you set out to do but never executed on
your war will get flipped upside down
and this is how you would live your life
this is the perspective change we need
to live a better life
this way it’s back to gratitude in many
ways i often pondered the idea that
today i might walk out that door and be
hit by a car or that this might be my
last day on earth
i often think would i be proud of all
the things i’ve done so far the people
i’ve made connections with
and the legacy that i’m starting to
leave behind my answer is yes
100 without a doubt and if your answer
isn’t yes you need to start living your
life
more gratitude and just simply stop
complaining
i don’t have time to complain about
anything that isn’t under my control
everything that i have i’ve earned
everything that has yet to come
will the world doesn’t stop just because
you’re in a bad mood
so we have to change our attitude and
keep going
this past year i completely changed the
way i viewed and lived my life
i started living with more gratitude i
stopped seeking out all the negatives in
my life
and i just started believing in myself
i’ve learned that i didn’t need to lose
more weight or be in a relationship to
be happy
i just had to do it on my own but even
working on this talk i was still
struggling with my own inner thoughts
this doesn’t sound good enough how are
you going to give this speech start over
all these horrible things still but that
was the whole point of this talk
i was trying to get myself to challenge
myself to change for the better
and this was the challenge i needed and
thus crossing my own rubicon
and this morning i woke up happy
[Music]
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