Remain Undefined How Big is Your World

i’m going to ask you all a question that

i want you to think about

so if you have a piece of paper nearby

go ahead and grab it

if not you can just participate mentally

how do you define yourself on a piece of

paper i want you to write down

who you are in five words

you can start with i am and complete the

sentence with something that defines you

we’ll give this some time so you can go

ahead and think about it

when i asked you that question how many

of you felt pressure trying to answer it

for some of you it may have come more

easily and you struggle to limit

yourself to just five

or maybe you struggle to even get to

five maybe you started out by writing

down your name

or where you were born your race or your

agenda

maybe you started out by saying your

major or your profession or your talents

or your hobbies

maybe you wrote down an adjective that

describes you or a personal value you

have

the potential for this question is

filled with endless possibilities

yet a definition requires such a narrow

platform to stand your ground on

this probably wasn’t the first time

someone asked you a question about your

identity

and it’s probably not going to be the

last but hopefully i’ll be able to give

you a new perspective about how you can

answer this question in the future

let’s first explore why people feel the

need to define themselves

we’re all familiar with the purpose of a

box boxes help us organize and transport

things from point a to point b

and as humans we too try to organize our

life the way a box

helps us organize our health and our

belongings when we feel lost

what do we do we jump in a box and we

try to give it a purpose

a position a label a definition

the problem with jumping into a box is

that they’re rigid inflexible and opaque

and there’s only so much you can put

into a box until

it’s full and you can’t put anything

else in there

it’s the same with the definition when

you try to define yourself and your

position in this world

you’re setting boundaries on your

potential and the person you can become

inhibiting you from reaching your full

potential and experiencing all that you

can offer this world

a box has a limitation a definition

has a limitation but your potential in

this world however does not

there’s a more effective way to handle

the uncertainty we inherently feel of

not belonging anywhere

but boxing ourselves up and trying to

give ourselves a definition

is not the answer and i won’t deny the

presence of a comfort zone

which is why we should all change our

perspective of them

we should consider a comfort zone a

bubble

the difference between a bubble and a

box is that a bubble is transparent

you can see inside and out of it so a

person inside a bubble is aware of the

space they are taking up

and the potential that exists around

them

but most importantly in a bubble you

have the power

inside of you to make the bubble bigger

so how big is your world when i was born

my world was very small i weighed

only 3.1 pounds and i was born five

weeks premature

but my world wasn’t only small because i

was

small my world was small because i

didn’t know how to take up space

you see not even 60 seconds of taking my

first breath of oxygen

i turned over to my side and i saw two

other girls who kind of looked like me

sitting in my bubble and this is a

picture of me and my triplet sisters

and as you can imagine growing up with

my two best friends laughing

joking playing it felt like nothing in

this world could ever bring me down

wherever i went in life i had a backup

squad and it always felt like it was us

against the world

and that was very apparent to me as an

advantage when we

immigrated from south africa to

california at the age of 12

and it felt like nothing in my world had

changed at all

but then when i began college at san

diego state university for the first

time alone

i discovered that i didn’t know who i

was apart from my sisters

i felt more whole as a fraction and

i was going to have to learn how to

start taking up more space

my journey may have started small but i

was going to build a mentality that

would push me to make my world bigger

so what did i do i started breathing

more i started living

exploring asking questions trying new

things i found my voice

and i wanted it to be heard i started

expanding my bubble

the second i let go of the definition of

being a triplet

is when i started to pave my own road

and become the woman that i am today

growing up it was difficult for me to

focus my hobbies and i always felt that

i was

just hopping onto the bandwagon of

whatever my sisters were doing

which is why the first time i picked up

a canvas i was 22 years old in my

sophomore year of college

and i discovered my artistic abilities

i had always been an artist i just

didn’t know it yet

and the more that i discovered who i was

and started expressing myself

authentically the less i was worried

about

being apart from my sisters and it made

me wonder

what else in my life is inhibiting me

from reaching my full potential

molds of a college education there can

be a lot of pressure at university to

pick a major

i started out as a journalism major

because i was told to apply to just one

and have a point of interest

yet when i got to college there were so

many things outside of my major that i

was interested in

and so i decided to pave my own way i

created my own degree which was called

an interdisciplinary studies degree in

three departments

of journalism advertising art multimedia

and film television

i was hands on with creating my degree

and it fueled my creative spirit

most universities offer this degree to

students they just don’t know about it

because they think they have to fit into

a mold picking a major

in order to be successful i was also the

first person at san diego state

university

to study abroad at a school in israel

called idc

i found out about the school and it

interested me and i worked with the

school and petitioned

in order to get that school approved i

fought for myself

i started to take up more space lastly

i’ll talk about the definition of my

physical appearance

when people meet me for the first time

their initial reaction is about

how small i am and i was expected to

reach

only 4-6 when i was tested for dwarfism

and i spent many years of my life taking

growth hormones in the hopes

of one day reaching the average height

for a female

today i’m 4 10 but people still consider

my height a disability

they think that i may be hindered in my

abilities or that i may be weak and

incapable

and i have a built-in stereotype that

defines me by my statute

but height means nothing if you aren’t

able to develop a growth mindset

after all life is about discovery and

reaching new heights in your experience

growth requires finding your limit line

and crossing it in order to make your

world

bigger it’s about self-awareness and

potential

understanding your current position but

also knowing that there is so much more

that you’re capable of achieving

and experiencing i’ve actively been

working on expanding my bubble to give

it more meaning

i began teaching gymnastics a year ago

and i now practice plyometrics

calisthenics training

i can do 20 pull-ups i can do 5

muscle-ups pistol squats one arm

push-ups you name it

with a growth mindset i believe that my

skills and abilities can be developed

through hard work and dedication

actions can change an outcome and there

is a connection between hard work and

improvement

to develop a growth mindset you have to

be willing to accept

all that you don’t know and start

embracing the experience of being a

student again

when you realize all the things that you

fall short from in your life

can be improved on by learning you begin

to gain confidence in yourself

a passion or desire is just a starting

point but if you want to be great and

discover your full potential you gotta

be prepared to work

hard you gotta find your boundaries and

actively work on expanding them to give

your life more meaning

for the past two years i’ve actively

been running towards fear

i’ve been chasing the things that i

don’t know and searching for the lines

of my limitation

which is exactly how i found myself in

richmond virginia a city that i’d never

been to before

never visited never knew a single person

in the middle of a pandemic and amid

socioeconomic unrest and i had to uproot

myself alone

but it was all to chase my passion and

the relentless pursuit

of reaching my full potential which

right now

happens to be a vcu brand center so i’ll

go back to my question

how do you define yourself

there’s a famous quote by benjamin

franklin and he said

most people die at age 25 and aren’t

buried until they’re 75

and it doesn’t refer to the actual

physical death but rather the death of

one’s hopes

aspirations and dreams and i can’t help

but wonder whether or not the reason we

stop exploring new things in our life is

because

of these molds and definitions we try to

fit into growing up

the age of exploration stops the second

we start trying to define ourselves

life is about discovery and definitions

limit our growth potential and

exploration

they inhibit you from experiencing your

authentic self which naturally is a

curious person

which is why we should all strive to

remain undefined

go against the grain chase the unknown

and never stop

exploring your potential your comfort

zone should not be a box

you should think of it as a bubble that

expands when you

realize that you have the power inside

of you to make it bigger

we all should take a hard look at

ourselves every once in a while to

re-examine our position

and start to inflate our bubble with

more air

don’t be afraid to take up space remain

undefined

because your world could be so much

bigger

and you may never know

我要问大家一个

我希望你们思考的问题,

所以如果你附近有一张纸,

请继续抓住它,

如果没有,你可以在精神上参与

你如何在我想要的一张纸上定义自己

用五个词写下你是谁

你可以从我开始并

用定义你的东西来完成这个句子

我们会给你一些时间所以

当我问你这个问题时你可以继续

思考 你感到压力试图

为你们中的一些人回答它可能会更

容易,你很难将

自己限制在五个,

或者你甚至很难达到

五个也许你从

写下你的名字

或你出生的地方开始 种族或你的

议程

也许你从说你的

专业或你的职业或你的才能

或你的爱好开始

也许你写了一个

形容你或个人价值的形容词你

有潜力回答这个问题

充满了无限的可能性

然而,定义需要如此狭窄的

平台才能站稳脚跟

关于

未来如何回答这个问题的观点

让我们首先探讨一下为什么人们觉得

需要定义自己

我们都熟悉盒子的用途

盒子帮助我们组织和运输

东西从 a 点到 b

也尝试组织我们的

生活,就像一个盒子

帮助我们组织我们的健康和我们的

财物当我们感到迷失时我们会

什么 一个盒子

是它们是刚性的、不灵活的和

不透明的,你只能

在盒子里放这么多东西,直到

它装满,你不能

在里面放任何东西。

你试图定义你自己和你的

在这个世界上的位置,

你正在为你的

潜力和你可以成为的人设定界限,

阻止你发挥你的

全部潜力并体验你

可以为这个世界提供的一切

一个盒子有一个限制,一个定义

有一个限制,但你在

这个世界上的潜力 然而,

没有一种更有效的方法来

处理我们天生不属于任何地方的不确定性,

而是把自己装箱并试图

给自己一个定义

不是答案,我不会否认

舒适区的存在,

这就是为什么我们 如果所有人都改变了我们

对它们的看法,

我们应该将舒适区视为

气泡

气泡和盒子之间的

区别在于气泡是透明的,

您可以看到里面和外面,因此

气泡内的人知道

他们所在的空间 接受

和他们周围存在的潜力,

但最重要的是在泡沫中,你

能力让泡沫变得更大,

所以你的世界有多大? 我出生时

我的世界很小 我

只有 3.1 磅重,我

早产了 5 周,

但我的世界不仅因为我

很小我的世界很小我的世界很小,因为我

不知道如何占用空间

你看 吸完第一口氧气还不到 60 秒,

我翻到一边,我看到另外两个

看起来像我的女孩

坐在我的泡泡里,这

是我和我的三胞胎姐妹的照片

,你可以想象成长 和

我的两个最好的朋友

开着玩笑开玩笑,感觉

这个世界上没有任何事情可以让我失望,

无论我走到哪里,我都有一个后备

队,总觉得这是我们在

对抗世界

,这对我来说很明显

当我们在 12 岁时

从南非移民到

加利福尼亚时

,这是一个优势,我觉得我的世界没有任何

改变,

但是当我

第一次独自在圣地亚哥州立大学上大学

时,

我发现我没有 知道我

是谁 姐妹们的艺术

我觉得自己更完整了,

我将不得不学习如何

开始占用更多空间

我做了什么我开始呼吸

更多我开始生活

探索提出问题尝试新

事物我找到了我的声音

并且我希望它被听到我开始

扩大我的

泡沫第二个我放开作为三胞胎的定义

是当我开始 铺好自己的路

,成为我今天长大的女人,

我很难

专注于自己的爱好,我一直觉得

只是在随波逐流,

这就是为什么我第一次拿起

一幅画布 我在大学二年级时 22 岁

,我发现了我的艺术

能力 我越是担心

与姐妹们分开,这让

我想

知道我生活中还有什么阻碍我

充分发挥大学教育的潜力

,在大学里选择我开始的专业可能会有很大的压力

因为我被告知只申请一个新闻专业

并且有兴趣点,

但是当我上大学时

,我的专业之外有很多

我感兴趣的事情

,所以我决定铺平自己的道路

创建了我自己的学位,

新闻学、广告艺术、多媒体

和电影电视的三个系中被称为

跨学科研究学位

因为他们认为他们必须适应

选择

专业才能成功的模式 我也是

圣地亚哥州立

大学第

一个在 isr 的学校留学的人 ael

打电话给 idc

我发现了这所学校,这

让我很感兴趣,我与

学校合作并请愿

以使那所学校获得批准 我

为自己而战

我开始占用更多空间 最后

我会谈谈我的身体的定义

人们第一次见到我时的样子,

他们最初的反应是

我有多小,当我接受侏儒症测试时,我预计

只有 4-6

岁,我花了很多年的时间服用

生长激素,希望能

有一个 今天达到女性平均身高的一天

我 4 岁 10 岁,但人们仍然认为

我的身高是一种残疾,

他们认为我的能力可能受到阻碍,

或者我可能软弱

无能,

并且我有一个内在的刻板印象,

定义 根据我的规定,

但如果你不能培养成长心态,那么身高就没有任何意义

,毕竟生活是关于发现和

在你的经验中达到新的高度,

成长需要找到你的极限线

并跨越它,以便 让你的

世界

更大这是关于自我意识和

潜在的

了解你当前的位置,但

知道你有能力实现

和体验更多我一直在积极

努力扩大我的泡沫给

它更多的意义

我开始了 一年前教体操

,现在我练习增强式

体操训练

我可以做 20 个引体向上 我可以做 5 个肌肉引体向上

手枪深蹲 单臂

俯卧撑 你

用成长心态来命名我相信我的

技能和能力可以得到发展

通过努力工作和奉献精神,

行动可以改变结果,

努力工作和进步之间存在联系,

以培养成长心态,你

必须愿意接受

你不知道的一切,并开始

接受再次成为学生的经历。

你意识到

你生活中的所有不足之处

都可以通过学习来改善你开始

对自己充满信心

激情或欲望只是一个开始 ng

点,但如果你想变得伟大并

发现你的全部潜力,你

必须准备好努力工作,

你必须找到自己的界限并

积极努力扩展它们,让

你的生活更有

意义在过去的两年里,我一直在

积极奔跑 害怕

我一直在追逐我不知道的东西

并寻找

我的极限线

这正是我发现自己在

弗吉尼亚州里士满

的原因 在大流行的中间和

社会经济动荡中,我不得不

独自背井离乡,

但这一切都是为了追逐我的激情和

发挥我全部潜力的不懈追求,

现在

恰好是一个 vcu 品牌中心,所以我会

回到 我的问题

是,你如何定义自己?

本杰明富兰克林有一句名言

,他说

大多数人在 25 岁时死去,

直到 75 岁才被埋葬

,这不是指实际的

身体死亡,而是指死亡

一个人的

希望和梦想,我

不禁想知道

我们停止探索生活中新事物的原因是否是

因为我们试图适应这些模式和定义

长大

探索的时代在我们停止的那一刻就停止

了 开始尝试定义自己

生活是关于发现和定义

限制了我们的成长潜力和

探索

它们阻止您体验

真实的自我这自然是一个

好奇的人

这就是为什么我们都应该努力

保持不确定性

逆流而上追逐未知

而不是永远 停止

探索你的潜力 你的舒适

区不应该是一个盒子

你应该把它想象成一个泡沫,

当你

意识到你的内心

有能力让它变得更大时,它就会膨胀

我们都应该认真审视一下

自己 当

重新审视我们的立场

并开始用更多的空气膨胀我们的气泡时,

不要害怕占用空间仍然

不确定,

因为你的世界可能是 更大

,你可能永远不会知道